Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace, Otty Patiño, announced on Tuesday that there is an agreement to extend for another six months the ceasefire with the guerrilla National Liberation Army (ELN), which initially started on January 29 ended up.
“There is already an agreement, now the government must issue the decree and give them (the ELN) the ceasefire order,” Patiño said in statements. EFE in Tumaco, in the Colombian Pacific, where the cabinet of Colombian President Gustavo Petro moved this week.
ELN sources were in turn qualified EFE that “there is an agreement on the possible extension of the shutdown”, so it is not yet a final decision, as the two sides initiated the sixth cycle of peace talks with a plenary session today in Havana.
Dialogue between the government and ELN in jeopardy due to the kidnapping of footballer Luis Díaz’s father
In Mexico, agreement was already reached in the fifth cycle on creating conditions for the extension, but now the parties on the table must determine the details, the conditions and even the duration.
The extension of the ceasefire will mark the extension of the largest ceasefire agreed between the government and the last guerrilla in Latin America, which came into effect on August 3, 2023.
In these first six months, the ceasefire has resulted in a reduction in violence, but it has had its ups and downs, especially when the guerrilla kidnapping of Manuel Díaz, the father of Liverpool footballer Luis Díaz, became known.
The parties arrived in Havana with the desire to renew it, but with conditions: the ELN asked for “guarantees” that the cessation would fulfill “its main function”, namely to improve the living conditions and human rights of the civilian population, while the government wanted to extend the terms and what a cessation of hostilities entailed.
In dialogue with RCN radioPatiño referred to the suspension of arrest warrants for members of the board. “That coincides with the whole ceasefire issue and suddenly there is a greater need to suspend arrest warrants so that people from the ELN can participate in the peace processes in the different directions in which the process is developing.” (JO)
Source: Eluniverso
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