MIAMI, United States. — The elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, wants Cuba to once again host peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN). This was confirmed by the politician at the end of a meeting held this Friday with ambassadors from Latin American countries that was reviewed by the agency AP.
According to Petro, now all that remains is for the Cuban regime to accept the proposal, which would give free rein to the resumption of talks with the Colombian guerrillas.
The talks with the insurgents of the coffee country were suspended during the mandate of outgoing President Iván Duque, after the Cuban regime refused to extradite members of the ELN to Colombia after the attack on the General Santander Police Cadet School, an attack terrorist perpetrated on January 17, 2019 by the ELN itself.
Although that episode tensed the diplomatic relations between Havana and Bogotá, Petro was willing to keep Cuba as the venue for the peace negotiations.
In this sense, the president-elect, a fervent defender of the Cuban dictatorship, assured that the regime of Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel was the victim on that occasion of an international smear campaign promoted by right-wing sectors.
“Cuba did not do so well because they made it the excuse for a diplomatic offensive against that country,” Petro said, referring to the previous period of talks with the insurgents.
“We have spoken with the Cuban ambassador present here in the resumption of the suspended diplomatic protocol that allows continuity of dialogues with the ELN there and the Cuban government will be the one to say if it wants to remain as host,” added the Colombian politician.
Petro was also in favor of Norway remaining as the guarantor state for the talks, if it so wishes.
“If the Norwegian Government wants to maintain its role as guarantor, which it was, that can be opened up to other countries. Spain has expressed provisions around helping the Colombian peace process and now the Republic of Chile, undoubtedly all of Latin America, because in the end achieving success in substantially reducing violence in Colombia, today increasingly complex, is also an American success”, said the president-elect.
A diametrically opposed position is maintained by the still president of Colombia Iván Duque, who assures that there can be no dialogue with organizations such as the ELN, whose members he described as “drug traffickers who do not deserve political treatment.
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