Colombia and FARC rebels resume peace talks

Colombia and FARC rebels resumed peace talks Thursday with a new commitment to make progress after months of stagnation at the negotiating table and fighting on the battlefield.

The talks designed to end a 50-year-old conflict that includes Latin America's last and oldest insurgency have been dragging on since November 2012.

But as this new round got under way, two things are different: both sides have pledged to de-escalate the conflict while negotiations are underway, and the methodology of the negotiations has changed. Now, negotiators will break up into working groups assigned to address different issues, in a bid to speed things up.
"In this phase we will move forward with a new methodology that aims to do technical, integrated and simultaneous work in addressing issues in an effort to reach conclusions soon," said Joaquin Gomez, a senior FARC leader.

On July 12 the two sides reached an accord to de-escalate, as the conflict had heated up since April, with dozens killed on both sides.

For the government that new agreement means scaling back military operations against the guerrillas, who in turn have been observing a unilateral, one-month ceasefire since Monday.

Any progress made and the new methodology will be assessed in November. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has made the future of the talks contingent on these new measures.

The war in Colombia has left an estimated 220,000 dead and forced more than six million people from their homes.

So far the two sides have completed three points on a six-point agenda for the talks. They have also agreed on a program to remove landmines from the countryside and form a commission to probe atrocities, although this panel has not yet been created.