Colombia’s President-elect Petro calls for ELN talks, ceasefire
Al JazeeraThe left-wing leader says he has sent a message that it is a ‘time for peace’ to the country’s last major rebel group. Colombia’s President-elect Gustavo Petro has proposed a “bilateral ceasefire” with the National Liberation Army, the last major rebel group in the country, in hopes of restarting stalled peace negotiations. Petro, who is a former rebel with the M-19 movement and is set to be the country’s first left-wing president, said on Tuesday he had “sent a message” to the ELN and “all existing armed groups” that the “time for peace has come”. Talks with the ELN, which unlike the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia group did not lay down arms under Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement, broke down under outgoing President Ivan Duque following a 2019 attack on a police academy in the capital, Bogota, that killed 22. The ELN’s central command said it was “keeping its system of political and military struggle and resistance active, but also maintaining its clear availability to advance the peace process”.