International
Colombian government and FARC dissidents begin new dialogue seeking to extend the ceasefire
The Government of Colombia and three blocs of the divided Central General Staff (EMC), the largest dissidence of the former FARC, began this Friday in Bogotá the VI cycle of peace talks with several items on the agenda, including the possibility of extending the ceasefire of the bilateral fire that ends on October 15.
Just one year after the official installation of the peace negotiations, and after several crises after the split of the well-known Central General Staff (EMC), the main dissident of the FARC, the delegations sat down with the premise of moving forward and that “this cycle can be a real leap forward,” in the words of the Chief Negotiator of the Government, Camilo González Posso.
“A year and three days ago we began this titanic task (…) where the starting point was given to this process, that’s where we managed to reach an agreement. Since then we have encountered thousands of obstacles, with vicissitudes,” accepted the delegate of dissent, Andrey Avendaño, who added that they are “very expectant of what may arise in this cycle.”
The sixth cycle of peace talks
In this sixth cycle of talks, which will last until October 19 and where it seeks to extend a bilateral cessation with the so-called Central General Staff (EMC), to which the blocks of Jorge Suárez Briceño, Magdalena Medio and the Raúl Reyes Front belong, the “environmental issue” will also be on the table, which both delegations consider “of vital importance”.
González Posso added that his expectations in this meeting are “to go out with very specific decisions, to develop an exact work schedule for the next period.”
The last cycle in this process was held in July, also in Bogotá, and it was in April when the EMC split, leaving out of the negotiations the dissidents commanded by ‘Iván Mordisco’, who operate mainly in the southwest of the country and have starred in an escalation of violence since then.
“We have been six months since the reconfiguration of the table, in April we opened a new period and in these six months we have advanced a lot to approve the participation agreement, we have advanced in prefiguring immediate steps in terms of territorial transformations,” said González Posso, optimistic in the process.
“Acceleration of results”
The installation of this cycle of dialogues in Bogotá was accompanied by the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, who told the delegations that “it is a process that needs to enter an acceleration of results” because the Government enters the second half of its mandate and this means that the time of “consolidation of work” must come.
“The National Government is ready,” the minister added, referring to territorial transformations and the defense of nature, “but we cannot do that without peace,” she warned.
For his part, the commissioned peace counselor, Otty Patiño, considered that “we need persistence, confidence that it is possible and knowing that building peace is not a path full of roses, but of difficulties,” while he was optimistic that an agreement will be reached to extend the ceasefire.
At the moment, it is still being discussed whether the extension of the cessation of hostilities will be for three or six months, although both parties seem to be leaning towards the second option.
In this line, Patiño detailed that the president, Gustavo Petro, has ordered to change the logic of the ceasefire: “The fundamental plan is, first, the policy of territorial transformation, and as an element that can support it, the ceasefire.”
International
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.
That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”
“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.
Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”
In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”
This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.
The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.
Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.
For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.
International
Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants
The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.
According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”
The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.
The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”
These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
International
Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”
“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.
“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.
Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.
“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.
The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.
Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.
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