The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) have agreed to an extraordinary meeting on January 17 in Caracas to reestablish relations following tensions over the failed ceasefire decreed by the Executive.
The meeting will be held next Tuesday at the Humbolt Hotel, the same venue where the first cycle of talks took place between November and December 2022, after the government delegation requested an eight-day meeting with the consideration of «emergency meetings».
The objective of the meeting between the two sides is to address the ceasefire issue and coordinate the agenda for the second cycle of talks to begin in February in Mexico, as agreed last month.
The announcement by Colombia’s Prime Minister Gustavo Petro to decree a ceasefire without supposedly consulting the ELN generated discomfort in the delegation.
«After President Petro’s unilateral declarations on the ceasefire, presented as an agreement at the table, this entered into a crisis that is about to be resolved,» said the ELN Central Command in a statement reported by ‘El Tiempo’.
In this document, the guerrilla warned that «it cannot accept as bilateral a unilateral decision of the Colombian government» which, in addition, dissociates itself from the «formality» of the dialogue table, since «it violates the procedures of not disseminating to public opinion what is not of consensus».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
