FILE PHOTO: Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks during an event with peace negotiators of Colombia's government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, in Bogota, Colombia August 3, 2023. REUTERS/Vannessa Jimenez/File Photo
BOGOTA/HAVANA (Reuters) - Colombia's government and National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels have extended their bilateral ceasefire for another six months starting Tuesday, the same day they announced the creation of a fund backed by multiple donors to finance the process.
An initial six-month ceasefire expired last week and was then extended by five days.
"We have agreed to extend the bilateral, national and temporary ceasefire for 180 days, starting at 00:00 on February 6, 2024. Each party will give the respective orders and instructions for compliance with this extension," they said in a joint statement published around midnight.
President Gustavo Petro's government restarted peace talks with the ELN in 2022 as part of a policy of "total peace" to end the South American country's six-decade conflict, in which more than 450,000 people have been killed.
So far, Petro's government has held six rounds of peace talks with the ELN, a process supported by Mexico, Norway, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and Chile, which are participating as guarantor countries.
Although the ELN suspended kidnappings during negotiations, its leaders asked the government for financial resources principally to cloth and feed their members - among other items - an issue they are addressing in the talks.
"A multi-donor peace fund will be created ... that seeks to strengthen this process and make it sustainable," said Vera Grabe, head of the government's delegation, without elaborating on the amount.
Pablo Beltran, head of the ELN's negotiation team, said that the fund must be managed with "transparency" to avoid corruption.
Negotiations with the ELN under previous administrations faltered on the group's diffuse chain of command and dissent within its ranks.
Colombia's government is also negotiating with the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), the largest group of dissident former rebels of the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Talks with other armed groups, including drug-trafficking gang the Clan del Golfo, have not yet been completed.
(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota, Nelson Acosta in Havana, and Natalia Siniawski in Gdansk; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Nick Macfie and Aurora Ellis)
