Colombia government and ELN rebels to resume peace talks Thursday

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The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) will resume peace talks on Thursday in the Ecuadorian capital Quito, the two sides said.

President Juan Manuel Santos's government suspended negotiations in January following an escalation in violence on police stations that left six people dead and dozens more wounded.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos delivers a speech in Bogota, Colombia on January 29, 2018. /VCG Photo

"Tomorrow [Thursday] from 10:00 a.m. in Quito, Ecuador, we will begin the fifth round of peace talks between the government and the ELN," Santos's negotiating team said on Twitter, in an announcement echoed by the ELN.

Ecuadorian foreign minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa, currently in New York, said it was "great news" that the discussions would resume.

"Peace in Colombia is peace for all of Latin America," she said.

Talks that began a year ago in Sangolqui, in the suburbs of Quito, were suspended after the end of a historic bilateral ceasefire gave way to a guerilla offensive.

A member of the "Omar Gomez" Western War Front of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla being photographed in a camp on the banks of the San Juan River, Choco department, Colombia on November 20, 2017. /VCG Photo‍

Santos announced Monday that the talks would resume following the rebels' unilateral ceasefire during legislative elections the day before -- seen as a test of the group's willingness to get back to negotiations.

He said the parties would discuss a new, "broad and verifiable" ceasefire agreement that would prevent a resurgence of violence of the kind that forced the suspension of talks in January.

The ELN "will continue talking" and "does not reject peace," said its leader Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista, according to a statement released by negotiators.

Colombian guerrilla group National Liberation Army (ELN) Commander Nicolas Rodriguez, known as "Gabino", gestures as he speaks in response to questions from Reuters at a hidden jungle camp in this still image taken from an undated video released April 23, 2015. /VCG Photo

Santos, who will leave office this August, is hoping to establish total peace in Colombia after the disarming of the FARC guerrilla group, which has since transformed into a political party.

Source(s): AFP