Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group could hold an emergency meeting in Caracas as early as this week, the head of the government negotiating team said on Tuesday.
Colombia declared and then called off a bilateral ceasefire with the group last week after the ELN said it had not agreed to the move.
ELN guerrillas said Monday that peace talks with the leftwing government of President Gustavo Petro were stalled, with disagreements standing in the way. The group underlined that in last week’s communiqué it had warned that a bilateral ceasefire was still to be discussed.
“As the government does not comply with the discussion processes of the (negotiating) table and takes unilateral measures and makes them public, these procedures put the development of the table in crisis,“ the ELN said in a new communiqué released Monday.
The Petro Government had announced on Dec. 31, a truce that constituted a unilateral imposition that harmed dialogue. The ELN insisted Monday that the peace negotiation was in crisis after such an announcement which was not agreed upon in the dialogues taking place in Caracas.
”The ELN cannot accept as bilateral a unilateral decision of the government, which does not abide by the formality of the Table as the agreed space to reach understandings and violates the procedures of not disseminating to public opinion what is not of consensus. Therefore, this decree does not commit the ELN,“ the armed group said Monday.
After the first round of negotiations took place in Caracas and a second one is slated to happen on Jan. 20 in Mexico, the ELN underlined it was not among the other rebel forces with which the Petro administration had accorded a six-month truce, forcing the government to repeal the decree halting military and police operations.
”This government measure respects neither the themes nor the procedures that were agreed upon in the first cycle [of talks],“ the ELN insisted Monday while warning that before the Mexico talks it was ”necessary to deal with the latest events“ so that ”unilateral actions outside the [negotiating] Table“ do not happen again.
”If in these peace dialogues participatory processes are implemented in the search for consensus, (it) will allow the country to have stability and prosperity; but, if the intention is to impose unilateral measures and more war, uncertainty and instability are generated, deepening the crisis we are living,” the ELN said.
Otty Patino, the head of the government’s negotiating team told Blu Radio that the two sides could hold a prior meeting back in Caracas this week or next.
“We are trying for there to be a prior conversation to complete what was left from the first cycle,” said Patino, who like President Gustavo Petro is a former member of the M-19 urban guerrilla group.
A meeting in Caracas “is not a cycle but an emergency meeting” he added.