Colombian rebels restart talks in Cuba
The National Liberation Army (ELN),Colombia's second-largest rebel group, began a second round of talks with Luis Carlos Restrepo, the Colombian peace commissioner, in Cuba on Friday.

Antonio Garcia, head of the ELN delegation, said on Thursday night that this round of talks would begin to set the agenda which would lead to a roadmap for ELN disarmament.

"We want to build a peace process that will create increasing spaces for democratic participation," Garcia said.

Restrepo told reporters that "There is a mutual will for peace and the important thing now is to generate confidence in the process ... so that we can find a way to end the violence that has caused so much pain to our country."

European observers monitoring the talks were skeptical about an agreement but expected the talks to last through Colombia's presidential election in May.

The first round of talks between the two parties took place in Havana from Dec. 16 to 22, with mediators including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, literature winner of 1982's Nobel Prize, and representatives from Switzerland, Spain and Norway.

Analysts said that an agreement between the ELN and the government could force the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia's largest rebel group, to return to the negotiating table, helping end the almost 40-year armed conflict in the country.