BOGOTA, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Colombia's FARC rebels asked foreign governments to reconsider branding them a terrorist group as the international community seeks to negotiate an accord to free hostages held for years in rebel jungle camps. The FARC appeared to be trying to prepare ground before talks on hostages, who include French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans, but its renewed push for recognition will most certainly be dismissed, analysts said. The United States and Europe list the FARC -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- as a terrorist group deeply engaged in the huge cocaine smuggling trade that has helped fuel Colombia's four decades of conflict. "We address you presidents, prime ministers and heads of state to invite you to contribute to Colombian peace with justice by recognizing the armed status of our guerrilla group," FARC representative Raul Reyes said in a statement published on Thursday by Anncol news service, which often carries rebel communiques. "On our part, you have to be sure, there is an absolute willingness to enter dialogue." The FARC statement came as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez seek to break a bitter deadlock over possible negotiations for a humanitarian exchange of about 50 key hostages for jailed FARC rebels. Chavez has said he plans a meeting in Venezuela with representatives of the FARC, possibly with rebel chief Manuel Marulanda, to mediate an end to the stalemate on the hostages, some of whom have spent a decade in secret camps. "This an attempt to prepare for an eventual meeting between Marulanda and President Chavez, which the FARC believes will mean recognition by a foreign government," said Alfredo Rangel at the Security and Democracy think tank in Bogota. "But it is a pretentious and ambitious petition." Violence from Colombia's armed conflict has ebbed under President Alvaro Uribe, who has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid to drive the FARC back into the jungles. But the FARC are still fighting, setting off bombs and laying land mines. Efforts to bring Uribe and the FARC to the negotiating table are blocked by rebel demands he temporarily demilitarize a New York City-sized swath of land and that Washington free two rebels held in U.S. jails.
