Spain has agreed this Friday to be an accompanying country at the dialogue table between the Government of Colombia and the ELN guerrilla, according to government sources.
President Pedro Sánchez had offered himself as a mediator in the peace process to Gustavo Petro in August of last year, when he visited Bogotá.
It was not until this Tuesday that Spain received the official letter to be part of the group of countries that provide accompaniment, support and cooperation (GPAAC) which also includes the United States, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.
Spain aspires to play a more relevant role in Latin America than it currently has in the region.
At the same time that he is going to be part of the peace process with the last guerrilla, he is trying to play some role in the dialogue table in Mexico between Chavismo and the opposition.
In fact, he has just appointed a new ambassador in Caracas, a vacant position since 2020, when Spain joined the bloc of countries that supported Juan Guaidó and ignored Nicolás Maduro.
Spain, like France, have backtracked and once again consider Maduro the president of that country.
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, participates in the eleventh Ecuador-Colombia binational cabinet this week, in the border town of Tulcán (Ecuador).
Jose Jacome (EFE)
Spain's mediation with the ELN can help strengthen a dialogue that has gone through difficult times in recent months.
Petro, at the end of the year, announced a ceasefire that was not actually agreed with the guerrillas, which infuriated the leaders of the armed group.
The talks were on hold until there was a new meeting in Caracas and the waters calmed down.
The following will take place in two weeks in Mexico, one of the guarantor countries along with Venezuela, Chile and Brazil.
The idea is that in all those countries there are sessions of the dialogue table, although given the difficulty of logistics, the negotiators welcome staying almost permanently in Caracas.
Many of the guerrilla leaders live in that city.
At the Celac summit held in Buenos Aires a week ago, Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva hinted that Spain would accept this role and join the delegation.
The letter received by Spain this Friday and its affirmative meaning is confirmation that it will be so.
Joining this dialogue means clearly and directly supporting the total peace of Petro, the project with which the left-wing president of Colombia wants to include all the country's armed actors in similar dialogue tables and achieve simultaneous pacification.
That would mean a truce, an armistice, in a nation that has been immersed in overlapping wars for almost 60 years.
Spain has sided with Petro.
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