The Colombian government and the country’s second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), on Monday announced that they would launch negotiations on Oct. 27 in the Ecuadorean capital, with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos predicting “total peace.”
Both sides have committed to doing everything in their power to “create an environment favorable to peace” once the talks begin, according to a joint statement delivered at the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Caracas.
The move came as welcome news for Santos, fresh from his Nobel Peace Prize win, but still reeling from voters’ rejection in a referendum of a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s largest rebel group.
“We’ve been seeking negotiations with the ELN for almost three years to end the armed conflict with them as well... Now that we’re moving forward with the ELN, we will have total peace,” Santos said in Bogota.
The ELN freed a civilian hostage, the International Committee of the Red Cross said, ahead of what the rebels had billed as an “important announcement” on potential peace talks with the government.
It was the third hostage release in two weeks by the group.
Colombia and the ELN in March agreed to launch peace talks in parallel with the government’s negotiations with the FARC.
However, the government has said negotiations with the ELN cannot begin until the group frees all its hostages.
In the text presented in Caracas, the ELN vowed to “initiate the process to free hostages before Oct. 27.”
The Red Cross said ELN fighters had handed over the latest hostage, whom it did not identify, in a remote area in the department of Arauca, on the Venezuelan border.
Catholic Church sources identified the hostage as Nelson Alarcon, kidnapped three months ago.
The ELN is still believed to be holding at least one hostage, former Colombian lawmaker Odin Sanchez.
However, the text announcing peace talks spoke of “two cases,” without giving further details.
After nearly four years of talks with the FARC in Havana, the government and rebels on Sept. 26 signed a peace deal — only for the Colombian people to unexpectedly vote against it six days later, sending both sides back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, FARC leader Timoleon “Timochenko” Jimenez tweeted that the ELN could “count on our militant support and solidarity. Many successes in this process that has now started.”
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