Colombia to resume peace talks with Gulf Clan after suspension

Body

Colombia said Tuesday it will resume peace talks with the country’s largest illegal armed group, the Gulf Clan, two weeks after negotiations were suspended. The government’s announcement came as delegations met again with international facilitation after the suspension that followed discussions about how to handle the group’s senior leadership.

A joint statement said the suspension “had been ‘overcome’” after meetings between the delegations. Those meetings were facilitated by the Catholic Church along with the governments of Qatar, Spain, Norway and Switzerland.

The Gulf Clan controls dozens of communities in northern Colombia, where the group has been accused of running extortion rackets while also profiting from drug trafficking and illegal immigration. Colombia has described the group as an organization of about 9,000 fighters, which is also known as the Gaitanista Self Defense Forces.

Colombia’s government has said the Gulf Clan operates as a drug trafficking operation and has faced international scrutiny over its role in illicit economies. The statement from Colombia also said the U.S. State Department designated the group a terror organization last year, while the Gulf Clan’s leadership has said it is an armed insurgency with political grievances.

The talks were suspended earlier this month after Colombia said it would work with the United States to capture the Gulf Clan’s top leader, Jobanis de Jesus Avila, known as Chiquito Malo. The statement about resuming talks did not lay out whether military or law-enforcement operations against Malo would stop as negotiations continue.

In December, Colombia suspended an arrest warrant against Malo and several other Gulf Clan leaders who are participating in the talks, a step that came as the government sought to create space for negotiations. Tuesday’s joint statement similarly did not say that operations against Malo would end, instead saying only that “agreements” aimed at advancing the peace talks had been reached.

The peace process began last year with initial talks in Qatar. Colombia and the Gulf Clan had agreed to set up special areas from next month in three rural municipalities, where clan members would be free from prosecution during the negotiations.

As part of the broader diplomatic backdrop, the earlier suspension followed a meeting in the White House between Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump.