Colombian President Petro accepts rebels' proposal for commission to investigate their alleged drug ties

(Patria) - Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Sunday he would accept a proposal from the country's largest remaining rebel group to allow an independent commission to investigate the group's alleged ties to drug trafficking, the AP reported.

The proposal was made in a video released on January 20 by Antonio Garcia, the leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN). In the video, Garcia said that while rebels tax cocaine traffickers, they do not run any drug trafficking routes or cocaine laboratories.

"The ELN has no ties to drug trafficking," Garcia said in the video and called on the government to allow an independent commission to verify the group's claims.

In a message on Sunday, Petro said he would accept the proposal, adding that the agency verifying the rebels' claims should be "scientific and independent of governments" and should submit its findings to the United Nations. Petro also called on the rebels to support efforts to replace coca crops in the northeastern Catatumbo region.

The Colombian president has long accused the rebels of profiting from drug trafficking, calling their leadership "drug traffickers disguised as guerrilla fighters".

The group's alleged involvement in drug trafficking has been one of the issues that have hindered the progress of peace talks in the first two years of Petro's administration.

Peace talks between both sides collapsed last year after the ELN launched an offensive in Catatumbo in which dozens of people were killed and more than 50,000 were forced to leave their homes. The ELN said in January that it would like to cooperate with the government on a "national agreement" that would allow negotiations to continue.

But Petro said he would only continue talks with the group once it abandoned drug trafficking. The ELN was founded in the early 1960s and has approximately 5,000 fighters in Colombia and neighboring Venezuela.

The ELN's influence in rural communities along Colombia's border with Venezuela has increased in recent years as it fills a power vacuum left by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a rebel group that dissolved in 2017 after signing a peace agreement with the Colombian government.

In January, Colombian officials said they discussed the possibility of carrying out attacks on the ELN with the help of the US military in a phone call with President Donald Trump.