International

Colombia resumes talks with powerful ELN guerrilla group

Photo: Yuri Cortez / AFP

| By AFP |

Colombia’s government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last recognized rebel group in the country, resumed formal peace talks in Venezuela Monday for the first time since they were suspended in 2019.

The talks are a push by President Gustavo Petro, who in August became Colombia’s first-ever leftist leader, and has vowed a less bellicose approach to ending violence wrought by armed groups, including leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers.

In their first meeting, the parties agreed to “resume the dialogue process with full political and ethical will,” according to a joint statement.

They added that the talks aim to “build peace” and make “tangible, urgent, and necessary” changes, highlighting the need for “permanent compromises.”

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The first round of talks will last 20 days.

Colombia has suffered more than half a century of armed conflict between the state and various groups of left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers.

The ELN started as a leftist ideological movement in 1964 before turning to crime, focusing on kidnapping, extortion, attacks and drug trafficking in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela.

It has around 2,500 members, about 700 more than it did when negotiations were last broken off. The group is primarily active in the Pacific region and along the 2,200-kilometer (1,370-mile) border with Venezuela.

Dialogue with the group started in 2016 under ex-president Juan Manuel Santos, who signed a peace treaty with the larger Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group that subsequently abandoned its weapons and created a political party.

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But the talks with the ELN were called off in 2019 by conservative former president Ivan Duque following a car bomb attack on a police academy in Bogota that left 22 people dead.

Petro — himself a former guerrilla — reached out to the ELN shortly after coming to power, as part of his “total peace” policy.

The ELN peace talks delegation spent four years based in Cuba, as they had been barred from returning to Colombia by the previous government.

They traveled to Venezuela last month, where the fresh round of talks was announced.

Colombian Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez warned that the negotiations do not imply a “suspension of operations” against the ELN.

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“If there is an encounter with someone who has an arrest warrant, they must be captured… There is no ceasefire,” he said.

‘We all have to change’

Colombian peace commissioner Ivan Danilo Rueda hailed a “historic moment” for the country after the meeting.

“We are here honoring life, the lives of so many beings who are no longer here,” Rueda said. “Murdered, disappeared.”

ELN delegate Pablo Beltran said he hoped the dialogue would be “an instrument of change… and we hope we won’t fail.”

“In Colombia, we all have to change” and “overcome the dynamic of death,” he said.

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Caracas is hosting the first meeting, and the talks will rotate between the other guarantors Cuba and Norway.

A statement from the guarantor nations said Monday’s meeting was “an important step to achieve peace.”

UN chief Antonio Guterres’s special envoy in Colombia, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, called on “the parties and Colombian society to take advantage of this historic opportunity.”

“I reiterate the support of the Secretary General @antonioguterres to this process,” he wrote on Twitter.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro hailed the process as “a message of hope for a peaceful Latin America and Caribbean,” at a rally in the capital.

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International

Iran Reports 201 Dead, 747 Injured After U.S. and Israeli Strikes

The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported Sunday night (local time) that at least 201 people were killed and 747 injured following attacks carried out by Israel and the United States against the Islamic Republic.

A spokesperson for the humanitarian organization said more than 220 rescue teams have been deployed across affected areas and that relief operations are continuing without interruption. The official highlighted the difficulty of treating the large number of wounded and the urgent need for additional resources in impacted provinces.

Out of Iran’s 31 provinces, 24 have reported damage, according to a statement carried by the Isna news agency. This marks the first overall casualty toll released by Iranian state-affiliated media since the launch of the offensive.

Among the dead are 85 schoolgirls from a school in the southern city of Minab, according to the country’s judiciary. “The number of martyrs at the Minab girls’ school has risen to 85,” the local prosecutor’s office said, as quoted by the judiciary’s website, Mizan Online.

Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian described the attack as a “savagery” that “constitutes a new black page in the record of countless crimes committed by the aggressors.”

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Meanwhile, the international community continues to monitor the situation closely amid concerns about possible further reprisals and the broader impact on Middle East stability, energy markets, and global security.

AFP noted that it was unable to independently verify the casualty figures or the circumstances surrounding the events.

International

Pope Leo XIV Urges End to ‘Spiral of Violence’ in Middle East

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday called for an end to the “spiral of violence” in the Middle East, following military strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran and subsequent retaliatory bombardments in the region.

“Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of enormous proportions, I urge the parties involved to assume their moral responsibility and stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” the pontiff told the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

Speaking during the Angelus prayer, the U.S.-born pope said stability and peace cannot be achieved through threats or weapons. “Stability and peace are not built with reciprocal threats or with arms that sow destruction, suffering and death, but only through reasonable, sincere and responsible dialogue,” he declared.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics also called for diplomacy to “regain its role” amid escalating tensions.

In addition, the pope urged Afghanistan and Pakistan to urgently resume dialogue after several days of clashes between the two countries.

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International

Security Council to Hold Emergency Meeting on Middle East Crisis

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Saturday condemned the “military escalation in the Middle East” following attacks by the United States and Israel against Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes, just hours before an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council.

“I call for the immediate cessation of hostilities and de-escalation,” Guterres said in a statement.

The Security Council is scheduled to meet on Saturday at 21:00 GMT (4:00 p.m. in New York) to address “the situation in the Middle East,” the United Nations announced.

The meeting, during which Guterres will deliver remarks, was convened at the request of France, Bahrain, Colombia, Russia and China, according to a diplomatic source.