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Roundup: Colombian gov't, rebels agree to sign peace deal within 6 months

Xinhua, September 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced Wednesday that his government and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have agreed to sign a final peace deal within six months.

The deal, if successful, will end the country's half-century-old civil war, which has left 220,000 people dead and more than 6 million others displaced.

Santos said it will not be an easy task, but he has asked the government delegation to reach the peace agreement "as soon as possible."

Santos said that Wednesday's agreement should pave the way for lasting peace and will definitively close the historical cycles of violence in his country.

Once the final peace agreement is signed, FARC will lay down weapons within two months, he said.

"We will not fail. The time of peace has come," Santos said.

The Colombian government and FARC signed here Wednesday an agreement on the special jurisdiction for peace in Colombia, which is believed to be crucial for real peace in the country.

The agreement includes amnesty for political crimes, as well as the creation of a tribunal to investigate, judge and impose sanctions on those responsible for the offences committed during the conflicts, especially the most serious ones.

At the signing ceremony, Santos said Bogota will possibly grant wider amnesty for political and related crimes, while excluding crimes against humanity, such as genocide and serious war crimes, including hostage-taking or other severe deprivation of liberty, and torture.

Also excluded from amnesty will be those responsible for forced displacement, forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and sexual violence, he said.

For his part, the FARC leader expressed his great satisfaction with the successful closing of the agreement on the special jurisdiction for peace, "because it will judge not only the guerrilla's fighters but also the government forces that participated in the conflict."

"We expect that nothing will stop, now, the stream of a people that demands peace, and wants reconciliation," Jimenez said.

At the end of the signing ceremony, Santos and Jimenez had a historic handshake in the presence of Cuban leader Raul Castro, host of the peace negotiations.

In almost three years of negotiations, FARC and the government have agreed on issues related to integral agrarian development, political participation and illicit drugs.

The next round of talks is scheduled from Sept. 28 to Oct. 8.

FARC was born in 1964 as peasant guerrillas. Over the past decades, peace talks between the government and the rebels have failed. Endi