By Luis Jaime Acosta
BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombia hopes to sign and begin to implement a peace deal with the Segunda Marquetalia armed group before current President Gustavo Petro leaves office in just over two years, the head of the government’s negotiating team said on Friday.
Segunda Marquetalia is a dissident faction of the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels whose leaders initially agreed to a 2016 peace deal, but returned to arms citing unfulfilled promises three years later.
Peace talks between the group, which has some 1,751 members, and the government are set to begin in Caracas, Venezuela on June 24, part of efforts by Petro to end six decades of armed conflict that have killed at least 450,000 people.
The government wants “a serious, consistent, negotiation, without shocks, which in the shortest time possible achieves definitive results for the country,” head negotiator Armando Novoa told Reuters.
“If possible we want a signed accord with Segunda Marquetalia before the current government ends…before two years are out,” he said.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime AcostaWriting by Julia Symmes Cobb)
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