BOGOTÁ, Colombia: The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group announced Monday that they will resume peace talks that they suspended last week.
In a joint statement in Havana, which hosted the multi-day talks, the two sides said they would “continue the activities set out” in the previous agreements to prepare for renegotiations in Venezuela in April.
The ELN last week declared the process “suspended” until further notice, accusing the guerrilla government of needlessly prolonging the decades-long armed conflict.
The ELN said that despite ongoing national peace efforts, the process had entered a “crisis” after Colombian government officials announced they would hold separate talks with local fighters.
Since Gustavo Petro was elected Colombia’s first leftist president in 2022, he has sought to end six decades of conflict with the country’s security forces, guerrillas, right-wing militias and drug cartels.
Negotiations with the ELN resumed in November of the same year. They were suspended by Petro’s predecessor, Ivan Duque, after a 2019 car bomb attack at a police academy in Bogotá that killed 22 people.
The Marxist group has participated in failed negotiations with the past five Colombian governments.
The much larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) laid down its arms under a historic 2016 peace deal, but some rebel fighters have rejected the deal and remain active.
Negotiations with the ELN have repeatedly failed as part of Petro’s pursuit of “full peace”.
The group is linked to drug trafficking and has been accused by human rights monitors of using various ceasefires to expand its influence, capture more territory and recruit new members.
Founded in 1964, the ELN has about 5,800 fighters and operates mainly along Colombia’s Pacific coast and the northeastern border with Venezuela.
