Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said Tuesday he is “very sad” for ex-president Alvaro Uribe’s criticism of the peace process with the country’s largest guerrilla group FARC.
Relations have continued to sour between the president and his predecessor as Uribe continues to criticize Santos’ government and express his disapproval of the process of negotiation.
However, the president has rejected the negative comments and said that he will continue making efforts to normalize the relationship with Uribe.
“I am very sad with ex-president Uribe, I hope that our issues can be resolved some day. He is fighting with me, I am not fighting with him. That which I do every day is say that we are advancing over what he constructed, and we are trying to advance in many of the objectives that should join all Colombians,” said Santos during his radio program “On Line with the President.”
The president added that “it is necessary to take things calmly, if one is left displaced every time there’s a complicated situation, one would be displaced 24 hours per day, one must have spirit.”
Santos said that for him “it is required to count to ten every time something happens in order to not react, I meditate to maintain my concentration in different matters.”
Emissaries of the guerrilla group FARC, which formed in 1964, will begin peace talks with the government in the Norwegian capital of Oslo on October 8 and continue later in Cuba’s capital Havana in attempts to end the armed conflict that has devastated Colombia for the past 48 years. These are the first major peace talks between the two groups since negotiations last failed in 2002.
