Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ireland strongly supports the peace negotiations in Colombia. The advances made in the talks over the past year are highly encouraging and there is now a historic opportunity to bring a definitive end to more than 50 years of violence and internal displacement of people. Ireland, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and our embassy in Mexico, is actively engaged in assessing how we can best contribute to the successful implementation of a peace accord. I have discussed developments in Colombia with the EU Special Envoy, Eamon Gilmore, on a number of occasions and I have also had the opportunity to discuss the peace process with the UN special rapporteur, Pablo de Grieff. In addition, I met the Colombian Vice Minister, Patti Jaramillo, when she visited Dublin last year to discuss the peace processes in Colombia with specific reference to Northern Ireland.

At the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg in April, my fellow EU Foreign Ministers and I were briefed on recent developments in the peace process by the Colombian Government’s High Representative for Peace, Dr. Sergio Jaramillo. Dr. Jaramillo spoke of the challenges of the implementation of a peace agreement between the Colombian Government and the FARC and ELN guerrilla groups and stressed the need for continued support from the EU and its member states.

Further to those meetings I dispatched a group of officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and our embassy in Mexico to Colombia in January of this year for discussions with the Government of Colombia, the United Nations and representatives of civil society, including groups involved in the promotion and defence of human rights. The reports to which the Deputy refers are stark reminders that Colombia still faces significant challenges in overcoming decades of violence in order to secure a lasting peace.

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