‘No guarantee of peace with ELN rebels by end of mandate’

OSLO: Hours before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said he could offer no guarantees there would be a peace deal in place with ELN rebels before the end of his mandate in 2018.

“I cannot guarantee that we will finish before the end of my mandate,” Santos said in an interview in Oslo, referring to talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s second-largest rebel group after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

“I will do my best but to establish a timeframe is always counter-productive in negotiations of this sort,” he said. - AFP