French President Nicolas Sarkozy can help secure the release of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US hostages held by leftist guerrillas, a rebel commander said in an interview published on Thursday.
Sarkozy should push Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to cede the rebels an 800km2 safe haven where talks would be held on exchanging hostages for jailed rebels, the guerrilla commander said. Uribe has repeatedly rejected the proposal.
Sarkozy's ``efforts to advance this proposal will be definitive in bringing home Ingrid'' and the other hostages, said Raul Reyes, a commander and spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on the pro-rebel Web site ANNCOL.
Betancourt, who has dual French-Colombian citizenship, was kidnapped in 2002.
Shortly after taking office last week Sarkozy met with Betancourt's daughter, Melanie, in Paris. The French president spoke by telephone with Uribe last week and reiterated France's desire the Colombian government seek a negotiated release of the prisoners and refrain from any use of force.
FARC seeks to exchange about 60 so-called political prisoners, including Betancourt and three US military contractors, for hundreds of jailed rebels.
In the interview, Reyes reiterated FARC's "unwavering determination" to seek a prisoner exchange, while acknowledging the prospects for such a deal with hard-liner Uribe remain distant.
Uribe recently said he was willing to unilaterally free hundreds of rebels as a good-faith gesture to jump-start talks over the exchange. The proposal was dismissed by Reyes as a "smoke screen" to divert attention from a scandal linking government supporters to right-wing paramilitary militias.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he would make a decision about how the US government would refer to the body of water commonly known as the Persian Gulf when he visits Arab states next week. Trump told reporters at the White House that he expects his hosts in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates will ask him about the US officially calling the waterway the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. “They’re going to ask me about that when I get there, and I’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody’s
RSS