COLOMBIA - FRANCE

Uribe urges Sarkozy to take part in FARC talks

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Bogota is calling for French President Nicolas Sarkozy to play a major role in the next round of talks with FARC rebels holding dozens of hostages, Colombian lawmakers said.

Colombia is seeking a direct role for French President Nicolas Sarkozy in its next round of talks with Marxist rebels holding dozens of hostages, a senior lawmaker said Tuesday.

Lawmaker Mauricio Lizcano told reporters that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe announced the move to him and other members of a Colombian commission negotiating for the release of the hostages.

A Colombian envoy "will tell Sarkozy that France is our strategic partner, and will ask that he be present at the meeting (with the members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) or that he send a representative," Lizcano said.

The lawmaker said that Uribe had tapped Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, who was to personally deliver the request.

Restrepo was to have departed for Paris later Tuesday, but called off the trip at France's request due to a scheduling conflict, his office said in a statement, adding that no alternative date has been set for his visit.

France has been keenly interested in Colombia's hostage crisis since French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped while campaigning for the Colombian presidency in 2002.

Restrepo said the role envisioned for Sarkozy would be neither that of mediator nor facilitator, but full-fledged negotiation partner.

He envisioned that the French government would "take directly in hand the solution to the problem" of the impasse in their talks to swap the hostages for some 500 FARC prisoners.

A senior aide to Sarkozy, who was traveling in Algeria Tuesday, said no decision had been made yet about what possible role France might play in the upcoming hostage talks.

"That requires a little reflection," the aide said.

"Some time will be needed to reflect on the best strategy" going forward, the aide said.

But the French president last week vowed to redouble his efforts to obtain Betancourt's freedom, after recently-seized videos of her and 15 other hostages were shown by Colombian authorities to prove they were alive.

In the seized videos, Betancourt, 45, looked thin and depressed, and apparently had one hand tied down. Other hostages in the footage, including three US nationals captured in 2003, appeared healthier.

The Americans, US Defense Department contractors, were abducted in February 2003 after rebels shot down their plane during an anti-drug surveillance mission. Colombian officials said the five videos likely were taped in October.

Colombia's overture to France came in the wake of a raging row between Carcacas and Bogota, after Uribe summarily dismissed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from his role as go-between during talks between the rebels and the Bogota government.

The Colombian president withdrew his support for the Venezuelan leader's mediation efforts after Chavez ignored his demand not to speak directly with Colombian generals about the hostages.

The contretemps that ensued has plunged Colombian-Venezuela ties into its worst crisis in memory, with Chavez recalling his ambassador and saying he had put diplomatic ties with Colombia "in a freezer."

Meanwhile, Betancourt's husband Juan Carlos Lecompte lobbied on Argentine television late Monday for the continued participation of Chavez in the talks.

"Chavez was (only) at the start of negotiations and he was doing it very well," Lecomte said, accusing Uribe of prematurely ending the Venezuelan leader's involvement "on trivial grounds."

related links

01/12/07 FARC says Sarkozy can play important role
02/12/07 Betancourt family and others still have hope in Chavez
01/12/07 Son: Betancourt "can't go on"