24/08/2013 09:11
Colombia peace talks suspended after FARC call for pause
Colombia's government and Marxist FARC rebels suspended their participation in peace talks in Cuba on Friday, complicating nine months of painstaking negotiations aimed at ending five decades of bloodshed, Reuters reported.
President Juan Manuel Santos called his negotiating team home from Havana hours after the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, said it would "pause" the talks to review a government plan to put any peace deal to a popular vote.
It was the first interruption to the talks that began last November and a sudden dent to hopes the two sides would soon see the difficult talks through to the end, after recent comments from the FARC had given cause for optimism.
While the halt to talks will worry Colombians, analysts said there is little reason to suspect the two sides will not resume talks again.
Santos, who bet his political legacy on bringing peace to the Andean nation, sent a bill on Thursday to Congress that calls for a referendum on any peace accord during national elections in either March or May next year.
"The FARC has decided to pause the discussions at the table, to focus exclusively on analyzing the implications of the government's proposal," Pablo Catatumbo, one of the lead FARC negotiators, said in a statement.
Santos said discussions would only resume when the government considered it appropriate.