COLUMBIA:France, Spain and Switzerland yesterday pressed leftist rebels to respond to Colombia's release of a top guerrilla to try to broker a deal over rebel hostages, including a French-Colombian politician and three Americans.
The three European countries have been engaged in efforts to break a deadlock between president Alvaro Uribe and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or Farc, which, as Latin America's oldest left-wing insurgency, has held politicians, police and soldiers hostage for as long as eight years.
Mr Uribe late on Monday released Rodrigo Granda, known as Farc's foreign minister, to act as a facilitator under a plan to free around 180 jailed rebels in a gesture the government and families hope will prompt Farc to release hostages.
"Colombian authorities have shown their willingness to advance toward a humanitarian exchange," the countries said in a statement.
"The three countries urge Farc to respond to this initiative in a constructive way."
Mr Uribe is popular for his US-backed campaign to reduce violence from the conflict by driving back Farc and disarming illegal paramilitaries that once fought the guerrillas in a dirty war fuelled by the country's huge cocaine trade.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy had asked Mr Uribe to release Granda to facilitate talks on freeing French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt, captured while campaigning for the presidency in 2002. Rebels also hold three US defense department contract workers kidnapped in 2003. The initiative to release Granda and other rebels proceeded even after Farc rejected the plan and reiterated a demand that Mr Uribe remove troops from a rural area around the southern towns of Florida and Pradera as a precondition to any talks on exchanging kidnap victims for jailed rebels.
Just as Mr Uribe was announcing his initiative in Bogota on Monday, Farc guerrillas kidnapped a police commander, Capt Guillermo Javier Solorzano, in a false military checkpoint.
He had been off duty at a farm when he was snatched with two other men, police said.
Opposition leaders and Granda's own lawyer have questioned how effective his release will be in securing a hostage deal.