|
||||||
President Alvaro Uribe said he had accepted a church offer to try to set up preliminary talks with both of Colombia's main Marxist rebel armies about conditions for possible cease-fires.
Peace talks would begin only after cease-fires were declared.
Until now the government had insisted the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest rebel army that is known by its Spanish initials FARC, declare a cease-fire before any talks at all.
"The government accepts the church's efforts for a preliminary dialogue towards a cease-fire," Uribe told reporters after meeting the church's most senior figure in Colombia, Monsignor Luis Augusto Castro, who made the offer over the weekend.
Uribe owes his 70-percent approval rating to his tough military policies against the rebels, which have led to steep falls in crime and violence. But many analysts say the FARC has only been pushed into retreat and that the government will never beat it on the battlefield alone.
Security forces believe the FARC has 17,000 fighters, paid for from the proceeds of the cocaine trade, extortion and kidnapping. A key demand for any peace deal would be redistributing land to poor peasants.
Thousands of people are killed in Colombia's conflict every year. The United States has provided Colombia with more than $3 billion in mainly military aid since 2000 to tackle the cocaine trade and Marxist rebels
>Back