Colombia president threatens to end peace talks with FARC

BOGOTA (AFP) - President Juan Manuel Santos, frustrated over a lack of progress in peace negotiations with leftist FARC rebels, threatened on Saturday to abandon bilateral talks to end their nearly 50-year old conflict.

"As long as we make progress we'll be satisfied, but if we do not make progress we'll leave the negotiating table," Mr Santos said at a public event in the town of Santa Barbara, in the north-western department of Antioquia.

Rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Santos administration opened peace talks in Norway in October, and continued them in second-round talks that began in Cuba the following month.

The FARC declared a two-month unilateral ceasefire after the talks opened, but did not extend it after the government failed to reciprocate. "The rules of the game are very clear," Mr Santos said on Saturday. "There is no ceasefire of any kind, neither military nor judicial, nor even verbal. These are the conditions that we set from the beginning."