Colombia Opens Talks With ELN Rebels

SANGOLQUI, Ecuador, Feb 8, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 08th Feb, 2017 ) - The Colombian government is set to sit down for a first round of peace talks with the ELN rebel group Wednesday, seeking to end a 53-year conflict that has killed more than 260,000.

The negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN) -- the country's last active rebel group -- mark a new milestone in the Colombian peace process, after President Juan Manuel Santos's government sealed an historic accord with the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in November.

"The dialogue with the ELN fills us with optimism," Santos tweeted on Monday, hours after a ceremony to open the talks in the host country Ecuador. "New generations and the victims deserve that the talks move forward and we arrive at a complete peace." The small ceremony took place at a Jesuit retreat outside the capital Quito.

"We have before us the opportunity to finally turn the page on this war," said the government's chief negotiator, Juan Camilo Restrepo.