Bogota, FARC poised for peace negotiations

Colombian government and Marxist guerrilla delegates arrived in Oslo, Norway, Wednesday to start peace talks in a bid to end nearly a half-century of conflict. "It won't be a traditional negotiation -- it is a new process," government delegation chief and former Colombian Vice President Humberto de la Calle said before the government delegates left from a Bogota military base. De la Calle said he was filled with "hope and optimism" but didn't "believe in false expectations" ahead of the expected two days of talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the English-language Colombia Reports daily reported. But he said he believed conditions were right "to achieve an effective and favorable result" from the negotiations and trusted he would bring "good news to the country." The FARC delegation -- led by second-in-command and chief negotiator Luciano Marín Arango, who uses the alias Ivan Marquez -- flew to Oslo from Havana. Ex-Colombian guerrilla Yesid Arteta, who lives in exile and was in Oslo for a Colombian peace forum, was quoted on Colombia's Communist Party website Tuesday as saying he thought the talks represented the beginning of a historic opportunity to achieve peace through truth and reconciliation after nearly a half-century of internal conflict. Carlos Lozano Guillen, editor of the Colombian Communist newspaper Voz, posted a Twitter message Tuesday saying the "FARC delegation flies to Oslo to seek peace." The International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol, said it suspended "red alert" arrest warrants for the FARC members participating in the peace talks. De la Calle said the negotiating teams would meet behind closed doors to work out logistics Wednesday and begin talks Thursday. The talks were delayed a day because of travel logistics. The Colombian government and FARC agreed last month to sit down to a new phase of peace talks based on a six-point agenda worked out in secret talks in Cuba in August. The talks were to begin in Oslo and later move to Havana. FARC is a Marxist-Leninist peasant army purporting to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's rich and powerful. It is financed primarily by kidnappings and drug trafficking.