(22 Sep 2012) A peace negotiator in the Colombian conflict said on Friday that all must join efforts to end the decades-old conflict.
Oscar Naranjo, the former chief of the Colombian National Police and one of the five negotiators of President Juan Manuel Santos, said he will join negotiations with rebel group FARC when they begin in October.
"If I have decided to participate, if I have accepted the designation (as a negotiator for peace talks with the FARC) from the president (Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos), it is because I believe all Colombians must make every effort within our reach to end the Colombian conflict," said Naranjo.
In September, President Santos announced his government had conducted preliminary talks with FARC over a year-and-a-half period in Havana and had reached an agreement to begin peace talks.
The peace negotiations are scheduled to take place in October in Oslo, Norway.
Both Norway and Cuba have signed on as guarantors, with Venezuela and Chile also playing a role.
Peace negotiator Naranjo said he was focused on making the talks a success.
"All I know is that all of my abilities will be focused on bringing peace to Colombians," he said during a news conference in Mexico City.
A decade ago, talks fell through after the Colombian government ceded a Switzerland-size swath of terrain as a safe haven for the group known as the FARC, which used it as a base to continue waging war elsewhere, extorting, kidnapping and expanding its cocaine trafficking activities.
This time around, the government has refused to consider a cease-fire.
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