Colombian ELN calls for “national accord” as US-Maduro fallout raises pressure

Colombia’s National Liberation Army, or ELN, called for a “national accord” to overcome political conflicts as it confronts mounting pressure from both the Colombian government and the United States, according to a statement published Monday on its X account.

In the message, the ELN said that after elections in Colombia this year, the group would like to work with the nation’s new government to design agreements aimed at defeating poverty, protecting ecosystems and “overcoming” the drug trade in rural areas.

The statement comes as reports say Colombia and the United States are looking for ways to conduct joint operations against the ELN. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has also portrayed the group as “drug traffickers dressed up as guerrilla fighters.”

Pressure on the ELN has increased since early this month when the United States captured Venezuela’s former President Nicolás Maduro in a pre-dawn raid and flew him to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. The indictment in a New York case accuses Maduro of providing protection to the ELN in Venezuelan territory and working with the group to traffic cocaine.

Since the raid, officials in Colombia have taken steps to weaken the group’s position in Venezuela, the report said. Last week, Interior Minister Armando Benedetti said Petro and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the ELN and its alleged role in drug trafficking during a phone call that decreased tensions between the two leaders.

Benedetti said that in an interview with Colombian radio station Blu, “the issue (with the ELN) is that they need to be attacked when they retreat” into camps in Venezuela.

On Monday, Petro said on X that the ELN has to give up drug trafficking and recruiting minors if it wants peace talks to resume. He also called on the rebel group to stop using camps in Venezuela, or face “joint actions” that also involve Venezuela’s government.

Colombia suspended peace talks with the ELN last year after the group staged an offensive in the northeastern Catatumbo region that forced more than 50,000 people to flee their homes.

The ELN was founded in the 1960s by students and union leaders inspired by the Cuban revolution, and it currently has around 5,000 fighters operating in Colombia and Venezuela.