Colombia – Santos Announces New Date for Bilateral Ceasefire

President Juan Manuel Santos has said that he expects the permanent bilateral ceasefire with the FARC guerrillas to go into effect on December 16 instead of January 1 of next year as he had previously announced. He said he will also ask the UN Security Council for a mandate to verify the definitive truce. The FARC has been insisting on a bilateral ceasefire for quite some time and has implemented more than one unilateral ceasefire. The peace talks in Havana, Cuba have been going on since 2012 and recently set a March 23 deadline for a final peace agreement. teleSUR