HAVANA/BOGOTA, Mar 21: Members of Colombia’s Marxist FARC guerrillas will meet US Secretary of State John Kerry, a negotiator for the rebels and two Colombian sources with knowledge of the peace talks said. A meeting with Kerry will be the first time a US secretary of state has met the negotiators from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who have been talking peace with the Colombian government in Havana for more than three years. A source at Colombia’s Office of the High Commissioner for Peace and another source close to the government confirmed the Kerry meeting and said it would take place today. Both the rebels and Colombian government negotiators will also go to an exhibition game between Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba’s national team tomorrow, the source at the high commissioner’s office said. That game will be attended by President Barack Obama, who yesterday became the first sitting US president to visit Cuba in nearly 90 years. However, FARC negotiator Pastor Alape said he was not aware of an invitation to attend the baseball game. He said details of the Kerry meeting would be worked out today, and it was not clear if the Colombian government would be in the room at the same time. “It has been scheduled, the meeting with Kerry,” Alape said, adding that the rebels would first meet the US special envoy for Colombian peace talks, Bernard Aronson, today to agree on an agenda. The United States sees the Colombian peace talks hosted in Havana as an example of how restoring normal relations with Cuba can help its wider goals in Latin America. Latin America’s longest war has killed some 220,000 people and displaced millions of others since 1964. The government and rebels are attempting to reach a deal that would be placed before Colombian voters for approval, with a UN mission supervising rebel disarmament. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by the nom de guerre Timochenko, had set a self-imposed March 23 deadline to reach a comprehensive pact but have since conceded that goal may not be reached. Washington designated the FARC as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, and many of its leaders have been indicted in the United States on charges of cocaine trafficking. (AGENCIES)
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