BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombian leftwing guerrilla group the National Liberation Army (ELN) on Monday said peace talks with the government were in crisis due to comments made by Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.
The declaration from the ELN represents the most recent impasse in the midst of negotiations that Petro restarted with the rebel group last November as part of efforts to end its role in Colombia’s almost six decades of conflict, which has left 450,000 dead.
“The peace talks cannot be subject to the fluctuations in the public statements of the president,” the ELN said in a statement.
“The negotiations have entered into a crisis and clarity is needed from the government, so that the path towards peace is cleared and so that we might speak in plain language to the country and the world,” the statement added.
The government did not immediately respond to the statement from the ELN.
The ELN spoke out just days after Petro questioned the unity of the group’s leadership and ordered Colombia’s military to target illicit economies, such as drug trafficking, which finance illegal armed groups.
The ELN, founded in 1964 by radical Catholic priests, has some 5,850 members, including 2,950 combatants, and is accused of financing itself through drug trafficking, illegal mining and kidnapping.
Negotiations with the ELN under previous administrations faltered on the group’s diffuse chain of command and dissent within its ranks.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
