Government, ELN rebels to resume stalled Colombia peace process

Colombia's government and the ELN guerrilla group have said they will resume peace talks which the rebels had put on hold last week.

In a joint statement in Havana — hosting talks that were held up for several days — the parties said on Monday that they would "continue with the activities set out" in earlier agreements as they prepare for another round of negotiations in Venezuela in April.

Last week, the ELN declared the process "frozen" until further notice, prompting the government to blame the guerrillas for unnecessarily prolonging the country's decades-old armed conflict.

The ELN said the process had been thrown into "crisis" by officials of a Colombian department announcing separate talks with fighters there even as national efforts to make peace were underway.

Since his election in 2022 as Colombia's first-ever leftist president, Gustavo Petro has sought to put an end to six decades of fighting that has drawn in the country's security forces, guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.

Talks with the ELN, or National Liberation Army, resumed in November that year. They had been suspended by Petro's predecessor Ivan Duque in 2019 after a car bomb attack on a police academy in Bogota that left 22 people dead.

Quest for 'total peace'

The Marxist group has taken part in failed negotiations with Colombia's last five governments.

The much larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, laid down arms under a historic 2016 peace accord, though some renegade fighters rejected the deal and remain active.

Talks with the ELN as part of Petro's quest for "total peace" have faced multiple setbacks.

The group, which is linked to drug trafficking, has been accused by rights observers of taking advantage of various ceasefires to expand its influence, seize more territory and recruit new members.

Founded in 1964, the ELN boasts an estimated 5,800 fighters, active mainly on Colombia's Pacific coast and along the border with Venezuela in the northeast.