Statement contradicts president’s announcement of six-month truce between country’s five largest armed groups

Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla group has contradicted government claims that they had agreed a national ceasefire, in a setback to plans to bring peace to the Andean nation after decades of violence.

President Gustavo Petro had announced on New Year’s Eve that the country’s five largest armed groups had agreed to a six-month truce, but on Tuesday the National Liberation Army (ELN) rejected the claims, saying it had not been consulted on any such plan.

Men were pardoned in April 2020, but after reviewing evidence the court concluded they had not come clean about their trip

Colombia’s peace tribunal has revoked a controversial amnesty it granted to three alleged IRA members accused of training Colombia’s largest guerrilla group in bomb-making.

Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) had pardoned the trio in April 2020 providing they fully divulge the truth about a trip they made to Colombia in 2001 at the height of the country’s six decades of conflict.

Negotiations in Caracas are part of President Gustavo Petro’s promise to bring ‘total peace’ and end nearly 60 years of civil war

Negotiators from the Colombian government and the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group have begun fresh peace talks, the first major step in President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to end nearly 60 years of war.

Petro, a former member of the M-19 insurgency who took office in August, has promised to bring “total peace” to Colombia by negotiating with rebels and crime factions involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining.