Colombia's government and the nation's second-largest rebel group ended nearly a week of cordial talks in Cuba on Wednesday with an agreement to set an agenda for formal peace negotiations, a move both sides called significant.

"I think this shows the seriousness with which these conversations have moved forward," said Colombian peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, the government's envoy, as the discussions wrapped up in Havana. "This commits us as the government to continue moving ahead."

Restrepo said that just months ago, few in Colombia believed a genuine peace process with the National Liberation Army would be possible. The fact that both sides have committed to more face-to-face meetings in Havana at the end of January was "transcendental," he said.

The peace commissioner attributed the success to the "cordial" and "respectful" tone of the talks, which opened Friday.

Antonio Garcia, the military chief of the rebel group known as the ELN, said his group was "pleased with this first step. This recognizes years of work, and could show a change in the path taken by Colombia."

Colombia's triangular conflict involving government troops, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary fighters kills more than 3,000 people each year, most of them civilians.

Many Colombians are clamoring for peace ahead of elections next year in which President Alvaro Uribe is up for re-election. Uribe has led a three-year military offensive against rebel forces since taking office, but has recently softened his approach after brokering a peace deal with the country's main paramilitary group.

The current talks with the ELN mark the Uribe administration's first formal negotiations with insurgents.

Several informal talks between the Colombian government and the ELN have failed since 1998. When Cuba last hosted Colombia's talks with the ELN in 2002, then-President Andres Pastrana pulled out, saying the rebel group was not interested in peace.

The latest talks aimed at ending part of Colombia's four-decade conflict remain in an introductory stage, but the meetings between Garcia and Restrepo laid a groundwork of mutual trust that will help future encounters, observers said.

"We salute the atmosphere in which both sides had an attitude of creating confidence and understanding," said Thomas Kupfer, Switzerland's ambassador to Colombia who came to Havana to help facilitate the talks along with envoys from Spain and Norway.

Both parties declined to provide details of the issues that would be tackled in the agenda-setting meetings. But Garcia said the discussion of deep social and economic changes in Colombia would have to be central to any peace process, and it was assumed the government would demand some sort of cease-fire agreement from the rebels.

ELN rebels have continued fighting at home during talks in communist-run Cuba. In a show of strength, they joined fighters from two other rebel armies in an attack on a western Colombian village Saturday, killing at least eight police officers and kidnapping several others.

The ELN has seen its forces dwindle to fewer than 3,500 fighters after Uribe's military offensive. But Garcia said Wednesday the rebel group's fight for social justice represents the desires of most Colombians.

"The ELN exists way beyond its armed men," he said.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies December 22, 2005)