Colombia talks enter second day

Many thorny issues are on the meetings' agenda

Colombian President Andres Pastrana is to hold a second day of talks with the country's most powerful rebel chief, Manuel Marulanda, in an effort to keep the peace process alive.

It has been a very productive meeting and we are going to continue our conversation tomorrow

Andres Pastrana

President Pastrana described his initial eight-hour meeting with Mr Marulanda in the tiny south Colombian village of Los Pozos as "productive".

Mr Marulanda, whose 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is the most powerful guerilla army in the hemisphere, said he was "very satisfied" with the meeting.

The talks are being held amid tight security in Los Pozos, which lies in the 42,000 square kilometre (16,200 square mile) rebel-held safe haven.

Dozens of police officers escorted Mr Pastrana, while several hundred armed insurgents lined the road leading to the complex where Thursday's meeting was held.

No major breakthrough

The BBC's Jeremy McDermott says the fact that President Pastrana is spending his first night ever in the FARC safe haven under rebel protection shows how desperate he is to save the faltering peace process.

The meeting is taking place in Los Pozos

The president wants the rebels to resume peace talks on the war that has claimed 35,000 civilian lives in the last 10 years and over the future of the rebels' safe haven

Observers say there is little hope of a major breakthrough beyond the possibility of an extension to the life of the demilitarised zone beyond its current 9 February expiry date.

But officials are hoping the talks will help restart wider negotiations three months after the FARC froze them, claiming the government was failing to stop violence by right-wing paramilitary groups.

Fighting for four decades

The Marxist FARC movement is Colombia's oldest - it has been fighting for 37 years - and most powerful, with between 12,000 and 16,000 fighters.

The peace process hinges on three key issues:

• the exchange of prisoners

• right-wing paramilitary violence against actual or perceived FARC supporters

• President Pastrana's US-backed Plan Colombia, aimed at reducing the cocaine trade on which the FARC is believed to rely for its funds

Mr Marulanda wants a prisoner exchange

Mr Pastrana has staked his career on bringing an end to the violence that claims the lives of about 3,000 Colombians every year.

His creation of the safe haven for the FARC has been widely criticised in Colombia, and a rebel demand to create a similar demilitarised zone for another guerrilla group, the ELN, has not gone down well with the public.

Critics say Mr Pastrana has made too many concessions, while the rebels have continued fighting, recruiting and distributing propaganda.