Colombia's main guerrilla force and the country's government, who have been holding talks in Sweden, say the peace process has advanced more in one week than in the past 40 years.

The government's chief peace negotiator, Victor Ricardo, said: "Two years ago nobody in Colombia or around the world thought it possible to establish a dialogue between the government and the guerrillas but today it exists.

"We have advanced much more than in the past 40 years but peace cannot be achieved in one day or two."

His optimistic tone has been echoed by the five rebel commanders who have gone with him to Sweden to negotiate but Mr Ricardo warned that an end to war was not something that could be achieved in a matter of days.

The BBC's South America correspondent, James Reynolds, says the apparent progress of the Stockholm talks has come as a surprise to many Colombians. They grown sceptical of the peace process with the guerrillas as little progress had been made since talks began last January.

Kick-starting peace

Government officials and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended their eight-day visit to Sweden on Wednesday and flew off to Norway for further talks.

The talks in Sweden were aimed at improving dialogue after four decades of enmity, and studying the Swedish model of economic and social development as part of a plan to kick-start the peace process.

Mr Ricardo said that the visit to Europe had opened new perspectives and encouraged more trust between the government and the FARC rebels.

After further talks in Norway, the team of some 14 government and FARC delegates were to travel on to Italy, Spain and Switzerland, Mr Ricardo said.

The guerrilla delegation is led by senior commanders Raul Reyes, Joaquin Gomes and Fabian Ramirez.

All three are wanted in Colombia and, to allow the meeting, the government had to suspend arrest warrants against them.

Mr Reyes said that tackling Colombia's grave economic problems was essential to put an end to the conflict.

However he said the visit showed that "we can work towards peace, that we can agree and create peace.

"But creating peace isn't easy even if most Colombians want it, because we have very strong enemies."

Highway

While the talks were going on in Scandinavia, the Colombian army was continuing operations against both the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN) - another leftist guerrilla group.

On Sunday, eight rebels were killed in clashes with the army in the rural area of Manzanares, south-west of Bogota.

The army said it had managed to re-take control of one of the country's main highways from the ELN guerrillas, who had been blocking it since the weekend.

An army spokesman said soldiers launched a big operation to disperse the rebels.

More than 1,000 people and 400 vehicles had been held up on the road, which connects the two main cities, Bogota and Medellin.