According to the country’s president, peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the ELN guerrilla group have reached an initial point of agreement.
The remarks were given by President Gustavo Petro during a visit to the province of Western Antioquia.
According to him, both parties have agreed that indigenous people displaced by the violence should be guaranteed a safe return to their ancestral grounds in the province.
The battle in Colombia lasted for approximately sixty years.
The left-leaning National Liberation Army (ELN) is the last active rebel force, and no ceasefire has yet been agreed upon.
After more than three years, negotiations between the two parties resumed this month, following the election of Mr. Petro, the country’s first leftist president and ex-guerrilla.
Mr. Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla organization, was inaugurated as president of Colombia in August on the promise of establishing “complete peace.”
These negotiations held in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas are a significant step towards ending Colombia’s protracted civil war.
As part of the historic 2016 peace agreement with the bigger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), negotiations with the ELN were unsuccessful.
The ELN has approximately 2,500 members and is allegedly funded by drug trafficking and illegal mining.
Cuba and Norway have decided to co-sponsor the peace effort alongside Venezuela.
At the time of the resumption of negotiations, Pablo Beltrán, head of the ELN delegation, stated, “We cannot consider each other as enemies; our mission is reconciliation.”
Danilo Rueda, Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace, stated before that “human dignity” must be the focal point of the peace process to eradicate the fear of being murdered or kidnapped.
