Colombian President Jose Manuel Santos announced Tuesday that the ceasefire signed with Marxist rebel group FARC will expire at the end of the month.

"I hope that we can advance in our accords and dialogues so that we can settle on the arrangements, and the agreements that allow us to put in place a solution to this conflict," Santos said in a televised statement.

Colombia was thrown into disarray Sunday after voters narrowly rejected a referendum on the deal brokered between the government and FARC to end a 52-year war. Final results showed a little more than 50% of voters chose "no."

On Wednesday, Santos will meet with opposition leader and former president Alvaro Uribe. Santos will also meet with former president Andrés Pastrana Arango, who also opposed the peace deal. </s> Colombia’s government and the leftist FARC rebels prepared to sign a historic peace accord Monday to end a half-century civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands.

A solemn ceremony on the Caribbean coast witnessed by international dignitaries will set the seal on a four-year process to end Latin America’s last major armed conflict.

“Today we are experiencing the happiness of a new dawn for Colombia,” President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.

He called it “a new stage in our history — one of a country in peace!”

He will sign the accord at 5:00 pm (2200 GMT) with his former enemy, FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez, at a ceremony in the colourful colonial city of Cartagena, the government said.

Santos opened the day’s events with a tribute to the Colombian military and police.

A prayer service for peace and reconciliation was scheduled later at an 18th-century Catholic church in Cartagena’s old town, led by the Vatican’s Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.

The guests at the signing will include UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and an array of Latin American leaders.

They include Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country hosted the nearly four-year-long peace talks. </s> Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos gives a press conference at the Santa Fe clinic in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. Santos said he will undergo radiation to treat high levels of a prostate-specific antigen that his doctors say don’t represent a return of cancer. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia's government and leftist rebels say they will sign a modified peace agreement Thursday despite strong resistance from former President Alvaro Uribe.

The signing ceremony promises to be a more subdued event than the heavily symbolic one attended by several heads of state in September in the colonial city of Cartagena. Reflecting the more somber mood in the country after the original deal was narrowly rejected by voters in a referendum, it will be held at the tiny Colon theater in downtown Bogota.

The decision to sign the accord and submit it to congress for approval was agreed to Tuesday by government peace negotiators and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia during a day of closed-door meetings at a heavily guarded Roman Catholic retreat in Bogota.

It followed a seven-hour meeting Monday night in which government negotiators tried to persuade Uribe and other skeptics to support the accord that would put an end to a half-century of fighting with the FARC

Ever since the original deal's defeat at the polls, the FARC and government negotiators have worked around the clock introducing some 50-plus changes to make it more acceptable to conservative Colombians who overwhelmingly despise the FARC

Uribe, a still popular figure who has led opposition to the peace deal, said Tuesday that the changes are cosmetic and that the accord, if implemented, represents a risk for Colombia's democracy because it doesn't go far enough in punishing rebels who committed atrocities.

He requested a meeting with the FARC leadership to discuss his concerns, an encounter that seemed unlikely.

"Uribe governed badly, corrupted and bled Colombia during eight years and never wanted peace. He wanted to defeat the FARC, but he couldn't," FARC commander Pablo Catatumbo, one of the rebel commanders in Bogota, wrote on his Twitter account.

President Juan Manuel Santos has made clear there is no more room for negotiation. In a joint government-FARC statement Tuesday, negotiators said they were still working on the procedures that would be used for ratification in congress, where the government coalition has a solid majority. Uribe had been pushing for another referendum, which he expressed confidence would again vote down the accord.

The standoff comes amid concerns that a delicate cease-fire could unravel unless implementation begins soon. Last week, two suspected FARC fighters were killed in combat with security forces in a confusing incident now being reviewed by United Nations monitors.

The FARC are also angry over the killings of several land reform activists and human rights defenders, three over the past weekend alone. Santos on Tuesday convened a meeting with top officials and the U.N. human rights envoy in Colombia to discuss the killings.

The recent murders "are palpable, dramatic evidence of the risks and uncertainty that exists around the implementation of the peace accord," Santos said after the meeting. </s> HAVANA/BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's government and Marxist guerrillas went back to the drawing board in Havana on Tuesday after a peace deal they painstakingly negotiated over four years was rejected in a shock referendum result.

In a vote that confounded opinion polls and was a disaster for President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombians narrowly rebuffed the pact on Sunday as too lenient on the rebels.

Lead negotiators Humberto de la Calle and Sergio Jaramillo were back at a Havana convention center on Tuesday meeting counterparts from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to see what the rebels are willing to do, the government said.

The Cuban capital was the venue for talks between the two sides since 2012 that reached an accord to end Colombia's 52-year war that has killed around a quarter of a million people.

All sides, including "No" voters, who carried the day on Sunday by less than half a percentage point, say they want an end to war, and the two parties have kept their ceasefire.

But there is vehement opposition - led by hardline former President Alvaro Uribe - to major planks of the previous deal, including guaranteed congressional seats for the FARC and immunity from traditional jail sentences for leaders.

A renegotiation seems to depend on whether the FARC would accept tougher conditions, maybe combined with a softening of Uribe's demands. After years of refusing to meet negotiators, Uribe has now said he is willing to seek a joint solution.

Santos and Uribe will meet on Wednesday morning, the president's office said.

Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said the decision whether to officially renegotiate the accord lies with the FARC.

On Monday the rebels said they would remain "faithful" to the negotiated accord and Twitter messages from FARC leadership appeared to suggest reluctance to change the terms at this stage.

"The thing is, just as the government has its deal breakers, so does the FARC, so we have to see if it is willing to reopen the accord," Holguin told reporters.

"There was no Plan B, we believed the nation wanted peace."

Three representatives from Uribe's right-wing Democratic Center party are to pore over details with three from the government. In what may turn into a dual negotiation process, those meetings are to commence once de la Calle returns from Cuba.

Colombian financial markets fell on Monday as investors worried that the limbo over the peace deal would hold up fiscal reforms such as tax changes.

Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas, however, said the tax reforms would go ahead. </s> BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Thursday that he is extending a ceasefire with Colombia’s largest rebel movement in a bid to give more time to efforts to save a peace deal rejected by voters.

Santos said in a televised address that he was extending by two months the ceasefire with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia until Dec. 31.

He made the announcement after meeting with students who have been organizing demonstrations across the country to demand the accord be implemented immediately despite it being rejected in a referendum.

“Let it be clear: this isn’t an ultimatum or deadline,” Santos said, adding that he hoped to have an agreement before year’s end. He said the lives of soldiers and guerrillas depended on warfare not resuming. “Time is conspiring against peace and life.”

Santos, winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, is engaged in three-way talks with the FARC and the opposition to find ways to adjust the accord so that it enjoys broader support.

Former President Alvaro Uribe, who led opposition to the accord, is demanding deep changes such as stiffer penalties for rebels who committed war crimes. Meanwhile the rebels, who would be spared jail time under the accord, are insisting they won’t go back to the drawing board and throw out more than four years of arduous negotiations with the government. </s> BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombians rejected a peace deal with leftist rebels by a razor-thin margin in a national referendum Sunday, scuttling years of painstaking negotiations and delivering a major setback to President Juan Manuel Santos, who vowed to keep a cease-fire in place and forge ahead with his efforts to end a half-century of war.

With more than 99 percent of polling stations reporting, 50.2 percent of ballots opposed the accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia while 49.8 percent favored it — a difference of less than 57,000 votes out of a total of 13 million. Pre-election polls had predicted the “yes” vote would win by an almost two-to-one margin.

“I won’t give up. I’ll continue search for peace until the last moment of my mandate,” Santos said in a televised address appealing for calm and in which he tried to reassure voters he was in complete control of the situation.

To save the accord, Santos ordered his negotiators to return to Cuba on Monday to consult with FARC leaders who watched the results come in from the communist island. He also promised to listen to opponents in a bid to strengthen the deal, which he said is Colombia’s best chance for ending a conflict that has killed 220,000 people and driven almost 8 million people from their homes.

“I’ve always believed in a wise Chinese proverb to look for opportunities in any situation. And here we have an opportunity that’s opening up, with the new political reality that has demonstrated itself in the referendum,” he said before descending to the steps of the presidential palace to address a small group of supporters waving white flags symbolizing peace.

The shock outcome, comparable to Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in the Brexit vote, opens an uncertain outlook for the peace accord that was signed less than a week ago by Santos and the FARC in a ceremony attended by heads of state, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Opposition to the accord, led by influential former President Alvaro Uribe, argued that the government was appeasing the FARC and setting a bad example that criminal gangs would seize on by sparing rebels jail time if they confess their crimes and guaranteeing the group 10 seats in congress through 2026. If the “no” vote prevailed, Uribe said, the government should return to the negotiating table.

But that is an option that Santos has previously ruled out.

With the government’s ability to govern now in question all eyes have turned to Uribe, who remains the country’s most-popular politician and whose almost decade-long military offensive forced the FARC to the negotiating table. He made no immediate comment on the results but his former vice president, Francisco Santos, the current president’s cousin, rejected claims that Uribe supporters oppose peace.

“What we want is an agreement for all Colombians,” he said.

President Santos served as Uribe’s defense minister but the two haven’t spoken for years, leading many pundits to joke that bringing the two former allies together is harder than achieving peace with the FARC.

Early in the day, FARC leaders, including Timochenko and Ivan Marquez, sat in leather recliners at Club Havana, once Cuba’s most exclusive beach club, watching the referendum results on a flat-screen TV. Initially the atmosphere was festive, with the guerrillas laughing and joking while snacking on cheese-and-olive hors d’oeuvres, smoking cigars and visiting an open bar.

But the mood soured as results began to come in, and the rebel commanders talked in hushed tones on cellphones, conferred quietly and asked journalists to leave the room.

“The FARC deeply regret that the destructive power of those who sow hatred and revenge have influenced the Colombian people’s opinion,” Timochenko told reporters later.

He said the rebel group’s commitment to peace remains intact.

“The FARC reiterates its desire for peace and our willingness to use only words as a weapon for building the future,” he said.

Turnout was low, with only 37 percent of the electorate bothering to vote, a further sign to some analysts that Colombians’ enthusiasm for the ambitious accord was lacking. Heavy rains from hurricane Matthew especially dampened turnout along the Caribbean coast, where the “yes” vote won by a comfortable double-digit margin.

The campaign exposed deep rifts in Colombia’s society, dividing many families and making it clear to even supporters of the accord that the road to reconciliation would have been long and torturous. Colombians overwhelmingly loathe the FARC, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group, and many considered the accord an insult to victims of the long-running conflict.

In the past month, ever since the deal was announced in Cuba after four years of grueling negotiations, the government spent heavily on television ads and staged concerts and peace rallies around the country to get out the vote. It even enrolled the help of U2’s Bono and former Beatle Ringo Starr. And for the first time in an election, it made ballots available in Braille so blind Colombians could vote.

The FARC, however, has made an effort to show its commitment to peace is real. Twice this week leaders of the group traveled to areas hit hard by violence to apologize for massacres committed by their troops and discuss with communities how they can compensate victims. Even ahead of implementation, they voluntarily destroyed in front of United Nations observers 620 kilograms of grenades and light explosives. </s> BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos on Thursday extended his ceasefire with Marxist FARC rebels through the end of the year as he seeks to revive a peace accord to end five decades of war after voters rejected the hard-fought deal in a referendum.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos speaks to guests after receiving the Clinton Global Citizen Award in New York, U.S., September 19, 2016. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

The original ceasefire, which was put in place in August, was nullified when the peace accord was rejected in plebiscite earlier this month. He had already extended it to Oct. 31.

The decision comes as Santos and his team hear proposals from representatives of those who voted against the accord - rejected by a razor-thin margin of less than half a percentage point - as too lenient on the Marxist rebels.

He will take the proposals to the FARC leadership in Havana, who have said they are willing to discuss new ideas.

Santos said he decided to extend the ceasefire further after meeting with student leaders who had organized two huge marches through Bogota to show support for a peace accord.

“One of the students reminded me, that in the army and in the guerrilla ranks, there are young people waiting to see what happens, hoping that they don’t need to fire another shot,” Santos said in a televised address.

“For that reason, and at the request of the students, I have taken the decision to extend the ceasefire until Dec. 31.”

The ceasefire can be extended further, but Santos said he hopes a new deal is approved long before then. Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end the war.

Led by hardline former President Alvaro Uribe, the “No” side wants rebels who have committed war crimes to be confined for five to eight years - possibly on agricultural farms - and banned from elected office.

They were outraged that the accord offered 10 congressional seats and non-traditional sentences like clearing landmines instead of prison cells in return for ending a conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people.

Although the FARC leadership has said it is willing to hear new ideas, Uribe’s proposals may be difficult to accept, given they have repeatedly refused to consider jail time and want to form a political party. </s> CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia’s center-right government and the Marxist FARC rebel group signed a peace deal on Monday to end a half-century war that killed a quarter of a million people and once took the Andean country to the brink of collapse.

After four years of peace talks in Cuba, President Juan Manuel Santos, 65, and rebel leader Timochenko - the nom de guerre for 57-year-old Rodrigo Londono - warmly shook hands on Colombian soil for the first time and signed the accord with a pen made from a bullet casing.

A crowd of dignitaries chanted: “Long live Colombia, long live peace” as Santos handed Timochenko a white dove pin. One man waved a large Colombian flag that had an extra white stripe in homage to the peace deal.

“The horrible night of violence that has covered us with its shadow for more than half a century is over,” Santos said through tears. “We open our hearts to a new dawn, to a brilliant sun full of possibilities that has appeared in the Colombian sky.”

Colombians will vote on Sunday on whether to ratify the agreement, but opinion polls show it should pass easily.

Attendees at the event, many of whom also wept, observed a minute of silence in memory of those killed, maimed, raped, kidnapped and displaced during the war.

The end of Latin America’s longest-running war will turn the FARC guerrillas into a political party fighting at the ballot box instead of the battlefield they have occupied since 1964.

“No one should doubt that we will conduct politics without arms,” said Timochenko, who asked for forgiveness from FARC victims. “We are all prepared to disarm in our minds and our hearts.”

Guests at the ceremony in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena were asked to wear white and included United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Cuban President Raul Castro and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Showing its support for the peace deal, the European Union on Monday removed the FARC from its list of terrorist groups.

Kerry said Washington would also review whether to take the FARC off its terrorism list, and has pledged $390 million for Colombia next year to support the peace process.

“Anybody can pick up a gun, blow things up, hurt other people, but it doesn’t take you anywhere. ... Peace is hard work,” he said of a rare diplomatic good news story for the Obama administration as it contends with the seeming intractable war in Syria and other conflicts.

FIERCE WAR

In the worst days of the war, attacks shook the capital, Bogota, which rebels threatened to overrun, and battles between the guerrillas, paramilitaries, drug gangs and the army raged in the countryside, parts of which remain sown with landmines.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (L) and Marxist rebel leader Timochenko shake hands after signing an accord ending a half-century war that killed a quarter of a million people, in Cartagena, Colombia September 26, 2016. REUTERS/John Vizcaino

Thousands of civilians were killed in massacres, especially in rural areas, as the warring sides sought to prevent people from collaborating with or supporting enemy forces.

Despite widespread relief at an end to the bloodshed and kidnappings of the past 52 years, the deal has caused divisions within Latin America’s fourth-largest economy.

Former President Alvaro Uribe and others are angry the accord allows rebels to enter parliament without serving any jail time.

In Cartagena on Monday, huge billboards urged a “yes” vote in the referendum, while Uribe led hundreds of supporters with umbrellas in the colors of the Colombian flag urging voters to back “no.”

The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which began as a peasant revolt, became a big player in the cocaine trade and at its strongest had 20,000 fighters. Now, its some 7,000 fighters must hand over their weapons to the United Nations within 180 days.

Colombians are nervous over how the rebels will integrate into society, but most are optimistic peace will bring more benefits than problems.

“This is the moment, it’s now or never,” said 50-year-old lawyer Melquis Pulecio, as he watched the ceremony with thousands of others on a big screen in central Bogota. “We are tired of this war - we were born to war.”

Colombia has performed better economically than its neighbors in recent years, and peace should reduce the government’s security spending and open new areas of the country for mining and oil companies.

Slideshow (8 Images)

But criminal gangs may try to fill the void in rebel-held areas, landmines hinder development and rural poverty remains a huge challenge.

With peace achieved, Santos, a member of a wealthy Bogota family, will likely use his political capital to push for tax reforms and other measures to compensate for a drop in oil income caused by a fall in energy prices.

“It’s such an important day,” said Duvier, a nom de guerre for a 25-year-old rebel attending a FARC congress last week in the southern Yari Plains that ratified the peace accord. “Now we can fight politically, without blood, without war.” </s> Colombia’s government and Marxist guerillas said on Saturday they have agreed on a new peace deal to end their 52-year war, six weeks after the original one was narrowly rejected in a referendum for being too lenient on the rebels.

The government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who have been holding talks in Havana for four years, said they had incorporated the proposals of various sectors of society into the new accord.

Read more: Colombians narrowly reject peace accord to end 52-year war with FARC rebels

Read more: Colombia’s undecided: Can all be forgiven after so much pain and loss?

In photos: A look at Colombia's long civil war

“We have reached a new final accord to end the armed conflict that integrates changes, precisions and proposals suggested by the most diverse sectors of society,” both sides said in a statement.

“We call upon all Colombia and the international community....to back this new accord and its quick implementation so as to leave the tragedy of war in the past,” the statement read. “Peace cannot wait anymore.”

However, former President Alvaro Uribe, who led opposition to the original deal said he asked for the opportunity for his camp and the victims of the conflict to briefly study the new accord before its implementation.

“I have asked the president that the texts they announce in Havana not be definitive,” he said in a statement posted on his Twitter account, adding that his camp might want to make some further tweaks.

President Juan Manuel Santos has staked his legacy on a deal with the country’s biggest rebel group to end the five-decade war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

It is still unclear if Santos will put the accord up for a popular vote again. He is set to speak about the new deal later on Saturday.
Colombian government and FARC representatives meet in Havana, and President Juan Manuel Santos will meet with presidential predecessors Álvaro Uribe, the accord opposition leader, and Andrés Pastrana Arango, to continue negotiations to end the 52-year war that has killed around a quarter of a million people.