Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos Saturday showed optimism over peace talks with the FARC, saying “we hope we’ll be able to get to a happy ending.”
While speaking before the IberoAmerican Summit in Spain, Santos said “the Colombian government has all the determination and will to reach a deal that will make and end” to the armed conflict between FARC rebels and the state since 1964.
“It won’t be because of our lack of compromise these conversations are not successful, and we hope they will be successful in a timely fashion,” the president added.
According to Santos, “we have wanted this process to be one that is led by a set of pripnciples; of dignity, of efficience, of prudence, of realism.”
The president made his statements two days before delegations of the government and the rebels meet for the first formal round of talks that were inaugurated in Oslo a month ago.
The peace talks, that began secretly in Havana early this year, are supposed to being an end to the conflict that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Colombians.
