COLOMBIA/FILE: Colombia's Santos calls negotiators home from peace talks in Cuba

Record ID: 349743

  • Title: COLOMBIA/FILE: Colombia's Santos calls negotiators home from peace talks in Cuba
  • Date: 24th August 2013
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF FARC NEGOTIATORS ARRIVING AT THE NEGOTIATING TABLE
  • Embargoed: 8th September 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Conflict,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAQZW03NVNSYYGVUDB9U3PIDU9
  • Story Text: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos calls negotiators home from Havana after FARC halts peace discussions.


    Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Friday (August 23) he was calling home his team of negotiators from peace talks in Cuba with the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), after the guerrilla group said earlier it was suspending its participation in the talks.
    "In this process, the one who decrees the pauses and makes the conditions is not the FARC, so I have taken the decision to call the negotiators to come (back) immediately to evaluate the scope of that statement, the scope of the behaviour of the FARC against initiatives that are only trying to accelerate the solution to this conflict," Santos said in Bogota.
    Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels declared a pause in peace talks earlier Friday to consider a bill proposed by Santos that would call a for a popular vote on any agreements that would bring an end to the five-decade conflict.
    This is the first interruption in talks that began in November and may indicate that rebel negotiators are willing to contemplate a shift from their original demand that an assembly to be formed to incorporate into the constitution any accords reached in Havana-based talks. But it also could mean the rebels are seeking to block the proposal by disrupting the talks.
    Santos, who bet his political legacy on bringing peace to the Andean nation, on Thursday (August 22) sent a bill to Congress that calls for a referendum on any peace accord during national elections in either March or May next year.
    The FARC said it still considers the constituent assembly, which would be tasked with enshrining the tenets of the peace accords in the nation's constitution, as the best way to reach a fair and binding peace treaty.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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