Rebels of the National Liberation Army escort Colombian policemen as they release them after a month in Samaniego, December 2006.
REUTERS/Leonardo Castro
HAVANA, April 18 (Reuters) - Colombia said on Wednesday it had agreed to an "experimental" cease-fire proposed by the country's second biggest left-wing guerrilla army, which is in peace talks with the government hosted by Cuba.
The move could mark a breakthrough in negotiations between conservative Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the 5,000-member National Liberation Army, or ELN, which has been fighting the state since 1964.
"The president has asked me to accept the ELN's experimental and temporary cease-fire proposal," Colombian peace negotiator Luis Carlos Restrepo told reporters.
"He insists that it be verifiable," Restrepo added, saying the government will be flexible in the way it implements its demand that the ELN concentrate its fighters in a geographic area as part of the accord.
Chief ELN negotiator Pablo Beltran said earlier in the week the group was willing to temporarily halt aggression, such as blowing up energy installations, but that to gather its fighters in one place would be "suicide."
The ELN was started by radical students and Catholic priests inspired by Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution. It has long been seen as Colombia's most ideologically driven rebel force, in part due to its traditional reluctance to get involved in Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.
But earlier this month Restrepo said the rebel group has taken to smuggling drugs as its main source of income, a charge the ELN has denied.
Colombia's biggest rebel force, the 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has rejected Uribe's conditions for starting peace talks. Thousands are killed in the guerrilla war every year.
