Colombia halts peace talks with ELN rebels and accuses them of war crimes in northeastern region

BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia on Friday suspended peace talks with the National Liberation Army, or ELN, for a second time in less than a year after blaming the rebel group for recent violence in a northeastern region.

"The dialogue process with this group is suspended, the ELN has no will for peace,” President Gustavo Petro said in a post on his X account.

The ELN has been fighting ex-rebels of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrilla group, or FARC, in a region known as Catatumbo, close to the border between Colombia and Venezuela.

Recently, the ELN has been spreading into rural areas abandoned by the FARC, which agreed a peace deal with the government in 2016.

On Thursday, a former FARC leader accused the ELN of killing at least four demobilized members of the group. Authorities have said that they are investigating other deaths.

“What the ELN has committed in Catatumbo are war crimes," said Petro, without giving more details.

The government suspended peace talks with the ELN last September after blaming it for the deaths of two soldiers.

Peace negotiations with the ELN began in November 2022 after Petro took power as the first leftist president and he also launched talks with other armed groups under a policy known as total peace.

The ELN, which was founded in the 1960s by union leaders and university students inspired by the Cuban Revolution, has an estimated 6,000 fighters in Colombia and Venezuela and finances itself through drug trafficking and illegal gold mines.