Colombia president: We will sign deal to end 50 years of fighting ‘within six months’

A peace deal will be signed within six months to end a half-century of conflict in Colombia, president Juan Manuel Santos has vowed. The pledge was made as the goverment and FARC rebels completed the formalities of a major breakthrough. Mr Santos and FARC leader Timoleon “Timochenko” Jimenez presided over a ceremony where a deal on justice for crimes committed during the conflict, a key issue blocking progress in dragging peace talks, was signed. And the president said he and Timochenko “have agreed that at the latest in six months – six months – these negotiations must conclude and the final peace accord must be signed”.

It’s not going to be an easy job because there are still difficult points to agree upon, but that is the instruction we have given to our delegations: they must complete the accord as soon as possible

Juan Manuel Santos

Mr Santos, 64, had made a surprise trip to Havana, where the talks were being held, for the signing ceremony. It is the first time he has appeared at the negotiations he set in motion nearly three years ago and on the success of which he has staked his presidency. It was also the first time he had met Timochenko, with whom he shook hands after the deal was signed, the president clad in a white dress shirt, the guerrilla in a white Cuban-style guayabera shirt with pockets. Timochenko, 56, said the deal “opens the possibility to offer full and detailed truth” to victims of the conflict.

Peace is now ever closer for the Colombian people and millions of conflict victims

US secretary of state John Kerry

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