The Colombian government and the left-wing guerrilla organization National Liberation Army (ELN) have resumed peace talks to end the 60-year conflict.

According to sources close to the negotiating parties, the first talks will take place this week.

The first meeting is said to have taken place on Monday.

Tjerk Bruhwiller

Correspondent for Latin America based in São Paulo.

  • Follow I follow

The first round of negotiations is expected to last twenty days.

The Venezuelan capital Caracas was chosen as the venue for the negotiations.

Venezuela, Cuba and Norway will take part in the talks as mediators and guarantee countries.

All arrest warrants against members of the ELN negotiating team and extradition requests have been suspended, according to the Colombian Attorney General's Office.

ELN has about 2000 to 3000 fighters left

The ELN is the last remaining major guerrilla organization in Colombia.

The Marxist-oriented organization, founded in 1964, has an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 active fighters in its ranks.

Earlier attempts to negotiate with the ELN had not progressed, partly because of internal disagreements.

After the ELN released its last hostages in 2017, the first official talks took place in Ecuador between the ELN and the government of then President Juan Manuel Santos.

However, negotiations, which later continued in Cuba, were suspended again in 2019 under the government of President Iván Duque after the ELN carried out a devastating bomb attack on a cadet school in the Colombian capital Bogotá, killing 22 people.

As a result, there were repeated attacks to which the ELN claimed responsibility.

Colombia's new President Gustavo Petro, himself once a member of the former urban guerrilla group M-19, has promised to open negotiations with all of the country's armed groups to achieve "total peace" in Colombia.

Petro sees the full implementation of the peace agreement reached in 2016 with the "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia" (FARC) as one of the top priorities.

He also wants to disarm other armed groups in exchange for reduced sentences.

The case of the FARC showed how difficult this task is.

The guerrillas could only be partially demobilized after the peace agreement.

Some of the fighters and leaders returned to arms after the agreement.

The armed groups are mainly financed by drug trafficking and other illegal businesses.

The ELN is considered comparatively dogmatic and united.

However, it is unclear how much influence the negotiators actually have over the active entities.