Santos: Colombia peace talks to open in Oslo next month

Peace talks will begin next month between Colombia's government and largest rebel group in a bid to end Latin America's longest-running armed conflict, President Juan Manuel Santos said Tuesday. The talks "will begin in Oslo in the first half of October" before moving to Havana afterwards, Santos said, adding that the talks "will be measured in months, not years." During the peace talks the army will keep up military operations against the guerrillas, known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and there will be no demilitarized zone set up, as was the case during the last talks a decade ago, the president said in an address to the nation. He said these points feature in an agenda agreed with the rebels in preliminary talks. "Military operations will continue with the same or even greater intensity," the president said.