Colombian Home Minister: 2015 will a Year of Peace

Colombian Home Minister: 2015 will a Year of Peace Bogota, Jan 5 .- The Colombian Interior Minister, Juan Fernando Cristo, affirmed that the peace process is going at a good pace and that 2015 can be the year when the way towards ending the conflict in Colombia is cleared.

In a message released this weekend by his Twitter account, he commented that by half of this month talks will be resumed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) in Havana

Cristo said the country should have full confidence that President Juan Manuel Santos and the Government are working hard to make 2015 be the year in which the road to peace, especially with the FARC-EP is cleared.

We hope this is the year of peace, reconciliation and coexistence for all Colombians, he said, while he expressed his wish to end five decades of armed conflict and finally reaches the end of confrontations that have brought so many pain and victims to the country.

Minister's statements coincide with the start in Cartagena de Indias of a series of consultations for the New Year prompted by Santos with his negotiating team in the talks with FARC-EP in Cuba and listen to the views of other foreign experts. In more than two years of talks, the parties reached agreements so far on the points referred to the comprehensive rural reform, political participation and illicit drugs.

In the pending agenda must be resolved even issues considered crucial like transitional justice, end of confrontation, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of guerrilla men into society.

The Colombian conflict of more tha half a century caused so far 6.8 million casualties, including 230,ooo deaths, entire peoples and populations displaces, tortured, kidnapped and missing.
(Prensa Latina)