Columbia: In what could be seen as the first significant step in President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to put an end to nearly 60 years of violence, new peace talks have been initiated between negotiators from the Colombian Government and the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group.

President Petro, a former M-19 insurgent who took office in August, has pledged to negotiate with rebels and criminal groups engaged in drug trafficking and illicit mining in order to restore “complete peace” in Colombia.

“We cannot see each other as enemies, the labour we have is of reconciliation, we hope not to fail these expectations for change,” Mr. Pablo Beltrán, a ELN negotiator remarked.

According to the Colombian Government, the discussions, which got underway in Caracas, Venezuela, will rotate among Venezuela, Cuba, and Norway as guarantor nations.

Previous attempts to negotiate with the ELN, which was founded in 1964 by radical Catholic Priests and has roughly 2,400 combatants, failed in part due to dissension within its ranks. The group, which operates illicit goldmines and drug trafficking routes in Venezuela, is thought to have roughly 4,000 fighters in Colombia.

The organization became Colombia’s largest remaining guerrilla group after a 2016 peace agreement disbanded the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as Farc. The ELN has escalated its activity in regions that were formerly under Farc authority after the historic deal was reached.

The leaders have noted that, the organisation is united but it’s not obvious how much influence the negotiators have over operational troops. The majority of the ELN’s negotiation team is much more experienced than many of its combatants.

Furthermore, Mr. Petro has pledged to completely carry out the 2016 peace agreement with the Farc rebels, who are now demobilised. In the six decades of domestic strife in Colombia, more than 450,000 people have died.

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