President Uribe stated he will create a ‘meeting zone’ to negotiate with Farc. This zone will be demilitarised where 45 hostage scan be swapped for 500 guerrillas. Neither the Colombian army nor Farc personnel will be armed.

“The Catholic Church has suggested the setting up of this zone and the Colombian Government has shown its willingness to accept” stated President Uribe.

“It will be 150 square km, will be monitored by international observers and ideally will not have civilians or very few”, added the President. “There will be no military posts or police to move away”.

“This proposal will be considered by President Uribe in the coming days and is one which he had previously agreed in September 2005.This had been proposed by the governments of Spain, France and Switzerland. However Farc had rejected the proposal mentioning security problems.

It is not a demilitarisation

The President ‘s adviser explained that the meeting could take place in a region where both sides are not armed, which is different from the demilitarised zone sought by Farc where guerrillas could be present but not the army.