The Colombian President, Gustavo Petroopened the door to a change of venue for the peace talks with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), according to international media.
In addition, the president rejected the inclusion of Cuba on the list of countries that, according to the United States government, sponsor terrorism, and asked the administration of Democrat Joe Biden to remove the island from this controversial list.
Regarding the possible change of venue for the peace talks, Petro referred to the issue in an interview broadcast this Friday by Noticias Caracol and Blu Radio, which was recorded in New York, where the Colombian president participated this week in the General Assembly of the ONU.
According to Petro, the resumption of talks with the ELN, which has already been agreed with the delegation of that guerrilla group that remains in Havana, will start from the point where the government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) left off, after which there was what he called an “abrupt interruption” under the presidency of Iván Duque (2018-2022), according to the interview reported by the agency EFE.
“Just as Santos left it, we started it (…) from there we started, just like with the same process, without changing it (…). They may change negotiators, there is also a change within the ELN and the site of the negotiations may change by mutual agreement. It is by common agreement”, assured Petro, quoted by the Spanish media.
When asked if the negotiations could be taken to Spain or Venezuela, the leftist president replied that “we must listen to their (ELN) opinion about the place, and our opinion” and added: “I have a place in the head and another day we talked about him”, without giving details.
EFE recalls that on September 13, Petro asked the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, with whom he recently reestablished diplomatic relations, to be the guarantor of the peace negotiations with the ELN, which was accepted by the Venezuelan president.
However, adds the office, the central role that Maduro can play in that negotiation has been criticized inside and outside Colombia, and when asked why give that relevant position to Venezuela in a peace dialogue with the ELN, Petro was blunt : “Because there they are”, referring to what many analysts point out that the ELN has become a binational guerrilla with a presence in both countries.
“Venezuela, in my opinion, was key in the Government (of) Santos for the disarmament of the FARC and I believe that it can be key in the possibility of success in the process with the ELN,” Petro assured.
The last talks with the ELN began in February 2017 in Quito, from where they were transferred to Havana the following year. However, the negotiations were stalled at the beginning of the Duque government and definitively frozen after the attack by that guerrilla against the police cadet school in Bogotá, which in January 2019 left 23 dead and nearly a hundred injured.
Regarding the request to the Biden government to remove Cuba from its list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism, the Colombian president described the inclusion of the island on said list as “an international injustice.”
“We ask the Government of the United States to stop this injustice committed between the government of Duque and Trump, because the only thing that Cuba did was offer a space so that a peace process could have been finalized”, explained Petro, aforementioned through the website Cubadebate.
Cuban government thanks Colombian congressmen petition to the United States
The Colombian president commented that Cuba had offered “with very good will” to host the talks with the guerrillas, “but later, when the Duque government decided to sabotage the peace process carried out by Santos, during the Donald Trump administration, they They charged Cuba for the fact that it had offered to host the negotiations and they put it on that list.”
However, he said that now his government has reopened the negotiations and, with them, has retaken the protocols established for them. Following these protocols, Cuba refused to extradite the ELN negotiators who were in Havana to Colombia, following a request from the Duque government, which was used as an argument by the Trump Administration to include the island on the list.
Petro’s statements take place after more than 80 Colombian congressmen also rejected the qualification of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, and requested its removal from that list in a letter addressed to the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, and the president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
EFE / OnCuba
