Otty Patiño hopes that the new meetings in Caracas with the ELN will allow us to find common points to continue dialogue
The peace commissioner of Colombia, Otty Patiño, revealed that starting on Friday, November 1, a new round of negotiations will take place in Caracas between the peace delegation of the Colombian Executive and the ELN guerrilla, in order to resume the talks that have been frozen for several months.
Patiño, as he stated in an interview with the EFE agency, hopes that with the new meeting – scheduled to take place in Caracas – the process, which has been stopped since May, can be “unblocked.” He pointed out that since January they have not held a formal cycle of dialogue due to a series of disagreements that led them to not renew the bilateral ceasefire that ended on August 3.
The negotiations were suspended after the attack perpetrated by that guerrilla on September 17 against an Army base in the department of Arauca, bordering Venezuela, which left three soldiers dead and around thirty injured.
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Patiño added that he hopes that this meeting “will allow the ELN to begin to see the territorialization of peace as an element that can energize its own process,” in reference to the peace dialogue initiated by the Government with the Comuneros del Sur, an alleged dissident group. of that guerrilla in the department of Nariño, bordering Ecuador, which angered the ELN and led it to delay the dialogues.
In addition, he pointed out that with Venezuela “there are no problems” and that they do not get involved in its internal problems.
The past October 10the insurgent group had agreed to meet again with the delegation of the Government of Colombia to evaluate the reactivation of the dialogue process.
The ELN reported that the Colombian government refused to rectify the non-compliance and that it even rejected the ceasefire extension that the ELN made “generously.” They argued that the Army deployed “warlike measures” against the militiamen.
At the beginning of August, a temporary ceasefire between the Government and the ELN concluded, which had lasted for more than a year, although the guerrilla refused to approve another extension, considering that the authorities had failed to comply with certain signed commitments.
With information from EFE / MundoUR
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