(Reuters) – Colombia’s government has reached an agreement to begin peace talks with a faction of dissident Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels who rejected a 2016 peace agreement, according to a statement.
A temporary ceasefire between the government and the dissident faction of the now-demobilized FARC, which is made up of approximately 3,500 people and is known as the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), will be discussed.
Leftist President Gustavo Petro has vowed to end Colombia’s 60-year conflict – which has killed at least 450,000 people – by inking peace or surrender deals with remaining rebels and crime gangs and fully implementing the peace accord with the FARC.
“Both parts reiterate the firm intention to advance toward the construction of a Peace Agreement that puts to an end the armed confrontation,” the two parties said in a joint statement dated Saturday and published via Twitter by the Colombian government’s High Commissioner for Peace on Sunday.
The statement called for an “integral, stable, and lasting peace with social and environmental justice.”
The EMC is one of two breakaway factions of FARC that did not accept the previous peace deal, which demobilized 13,000 people and led to the creation of a political party that won 10 seats in Congress.
Another rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), which was not part of the 2016 deal, is currently in talks with Petro’s government. The parties announced in June that a six-month ceasefire will begin in August.
(Reporting and writing by Anna-Catherine Brigida; Editing by Mark Porter)
