United Nations Agrees to Supervise Colombia Peace Deal

Edited by Lena Valverde Jordi
2016-01-26 15:49:50

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United Nations, January 26 (RHC-teleSUR) -- The United Nations Security Council has agreed on the creation of a political mission to help supervise the definitive cease-fire negotiated between the Colombian government and rebel group FARC.

The 15 members of the council unanimously voted to adopt a resolution to put U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “immediately” in charge of preparations to put operations in motion. He will lead the mission for 12 months.

Ban will have to present details of the mission to the U.N. within 30 days after the signing of the peace agreement.

The resolution was passed by the five permanent members of the Security Council (United Kingdom, France, United States, China and Russia) and the ten rotating members including Uruguay, Venezuela and Spain.

“The mission will be a political mission made up of unarmed international observers, who will be in charge of monitoring and verifying the relinquishment of arms and will form part of the tripartite mechanism,” the text explained.

A draft resolution submitted to the U.N. Security Council Thursday proposed to set up a 12-month mission in Colombia that would monitor the implementation of the peace agreement currently being negotiated between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the rebel militants.

In Havana two days before, where negotiations have been carried out since 2012, both parties agreed to resort to the international organization in order to “establish a political mission to participate for a period of 12 months … to monitor and verify the definitive bilateral cease-fire and cessation of hostilities, and the laying down of arms,” reported Reuters.

The government and the FARC both agreed to reach a peace deal by March 23, although the FARC warned it would be difficult to meet the deadline.

Over the course of more than five decades of internal conflict impacting millions of Colombians, 220,000 people have lost their lives and more than 6.7 million more have been displaced.

 



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