Colombia's FARC rebel army has contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to help return the bodies of 11 kidnapped lawmakers who died while in its hands, ICRC officials said on Monday.
The rebel group has meanwhile called on the governments of France, Switzerland and Spain to take part in the handover of the bodies.
Yves Heller, spokesman for the ICRC's Colombia office, said on Monday that the Colombian government has given its approval for efforts to recover the bodies of the 11.
But the ICRC has insisted that the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which still holds scores of hostages, must guarantee the security of the team to handle the repatriation of the bodies.
"In the interest of the families of the victims and the success of the operation, it needs to be carried out in a confidential and discreet manner before all the interested parties," ICRC said.
It also said that while it wants the bodies turned over as quickly as possible, "no date or place has been set" for the handover.
FARC meanwhile posted on its Web site on Monday a short statement calling for the three European countries, which have attempted to mediate a FARC-government hostage exchange, to take part in the transfer of the bodies.
The rebels blamed the delay in handing over the bodies on "the large presence of official soldiers and paramilitaries in the zone where the tragedy [the deaths of the 11] took place."
FARC's offer came nearly two weeks after it reported the lawmakers' deaths, which it blamed on "crossfire" during a June 18 raid on one of its camps by what it described as an "un-identified military group."
The government has denied that its forces were involved in any battle with the FARC camp, and accused the guerrilla group of murdering the hostages.
The 11 were among 56 hostages FARC, an army of some 17,000 guerrillas which has been fighting the government for decades, has said it wants to swap for hundreds of FARC members taken prisoner by the government.
The FARC hostages include French-Colombian former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe last month released 150 jailed FARC rebels, including one of its leaders, Rodrigo Granda, hoping for a reciprocal release of some of its high-profile hostages.
But so far no such prisoner swap has taken place.
Ruby Jaramillo, the wife of Nacianceno Orozco, one of the killed deputies, confirmed that she had been contacted by the ICRC over the possible return of the bodies.
"Now we are waiting for the guerrillas and the government to speed up the steps necessary for us to be able to recover these bodies and hold our wake," she said.
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