Colombia and the leftist rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced Tuesday that they had signed an agreement to launch peace negotiations. Chile and Venezuela will be observers at the talks, which will begin in Oslo, Norway, and continue in Havana, Cuba.
As the Washington Post reported, the talks represent a “new attempt to end the Western Hemisphere’s longest-running conflict” and the first such effort since three years of negotiations “ended disastrously in 2002.”
Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, offered several reasons why the talks could possibly succeed this time around. “The Colombian security forces are stronger and more effective than they were a decade ago. The FARC have been weakened,” he said.