Reuters Colombian
President Juan Manuel Santos and opposition leader Alvaro Uribe were unable to
find common ground on a peace accord with Marxist FARC rebels,
even with the
mediation of Pope Francis when they met at the Vatican on Friday.
On his third
visit to the Vatican, Santos appealed to Francis for support in ending a
52-year war that has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions.
"We need
your help," said Santos, who signed a modified peace deal in November
after a previous pact was rejected in a plebiscite. He gave the pope a gift of
a pen made from a machine gun bullet.
Francis, an
Argentine who has helped broker diplomatic efforts in Cuba and Venezuela, then
received Uribe, a right-wing senator and former president who has been one of
the harshest critics of the new peace deal.
The former
allies also met Francis together for around 20 minutes. A photograph released
by the Vatican showed them sitting side by side at a table in the pope's
private study. It appears no consensus was reached.
"I told
ex-president Uribe that we are always ready, as we have said in previous
occasions, to continue dialogue, to reach agreement about how the peace accord
should be implemented," Santos said after the joint meeting.
Uribe argues
the new deal is not tough enough on Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) rebels since it does not include opposition demands that they serve
traditional jail sentences and be barred from forming political parties.
"If the
government allows room to examine certain issues, we could look for
options," Uribe said, reiterating a previous demand.
Santos won
this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to reach an accord, under which
some 7,000 rebels are now heading to special demobilization areas to hand in
their weapons.
Francis has
repeatedly expressed support for the deal over four years of negotiations. At
Friday's meeting, he presented Santos with a medal and copies of the three
encyclicals produced during his papacy.
Reuters
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