[NYTr] Colombia Repeats Terms for FARC Meeting

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com

Colombia Repeats Terms for FARC Meeting

Bogota, Nov 21 (Prensa Latina) Colombian President Alvaro Uribe
reiterated his recognition of the negotiations mediated by his peer,
Hugo Chavez, on Wednesday, but also restated his conditions for talks
between the Venezuelan leader and guerrilla head Manuel Marulanda.

At a military graduation ceremony, Uribe said that if the Colombian
Revolutionary Armed Forces -FARC- releases some of the people held
prisoner and promises to release all of them, Chavez and Marulanda
could meet.

He also said a place for the meeting could be found in the EL Caguan
area, "for Chavez to establish a successful peace process with
Marulanda," and that he would not refuse to attend a meeting, maybe
later.

According to the president, FARC wants to play the leading political
role to allow them to again be VIPs, and thus inconveniencing Chavez
and opposition Sen. Piedad Cordoba as mediators for an indefinite
period.

Uribe reiterated, almost to the letter, what he said yesterday in a
presidential release that set the meeting between Marulanda and Chavez
conditional on the release by the FARC of a group of its prisoners.

The Venezuelan leader and Piedad Cordoba have insisted that a meeting
with Marulanda would be the cornerstone to continue making progress in
the negotiations to reach a prisoner exchange between the government
and the guerrillas.

Uribe even pushed into the background the controversial issue of
demilitarizing some spot of Colombian territory for the meetings
between the government and the insurgence, which is demanded by the
guerrillas and rejected by the authorities.

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