Colombia: President Petro will seek to reactivate peace talks with the ELN

Published at: 13/10/2025 12:19 PM

This Monday, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announced that he will seek to resume peace talks with the guerrilla National Liberation Army (ELN), suspended in January after the armed group attacked the civilian population.

“It's time to restart contacts with the ELN. I reply to Mr. Pablo Beltrán: try the peace of Colombia. You don't need to destroy an entire city and kill 70,000 people to make a humanitarian exchange,” Petro wrote.

The process with the ELN has been one of the pillars of Petro's “total peace” policy, a project that seeks dialogue with different armed groups, although it has not yet obtained satisfactory results.

During 2023, the government managed to agree on the longest ceasefire so far with that guerrilla group, verified by the United Nations (UN), but in the middle of this year Petro stated that the negotiations were “broken”, due to the actions of the ELN in the border corridors with Venezuela.

This year, between January 16 and 20, the ELN launched an armed offensive in Catatumbo, north of Santander, against the 33rd Front of FARC dissidents, unleashing one of the most serious crises in recent years in the region.

This attack in the border area with Venezuela caused more than 90 deaths and 56,000 people displaced, according to figures from the Ideas for Peace Foundation and official entities.

Mazo News Team