FARC negotiator rejects March deadline for peace with Colombian government

BOGOTA, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A top FARC negotiator said a final peace agreement with the Colombian government will not be signed by the previously agreed March deadline.

Senior FARC negotiator Jesus Santrich told Noticias Uno that delays have been caused by government negotiators "changing the rules of the game." The Colombian government and the FARC rebel group recently reached an agreement over reparations for victims of the decades-long conflict.

Victim reparations was one of the most sensitive issues in the peace talks that have been taking place in Havana, Cuba, since 2012. A special judicial system will be established to carry out punishment of war crimes.

In September, Colombia and the FARC agreed to a peace deal deadline -- setting up the possibility of ending the longest-running armed conflict in the South American continent by March 2016.

"In honoring truth, we must be clear in saying that on 23 of March there will not be a signing of the final agreement," Santrich said. "We had already signed. Now what was agreed, was agreed. Later emerged an invention that the agreement was in development. We had to return twice to discuss it."

The last point in the agenda to finalize the peace agreement is to establish a bilateral ceasefire and the details of the FARC's demobilization, disarmament and reintegration into Colombian society

More than 220,000 people have died and 5 million have been internally displaced due to the Colombian conflict since the FARC's founding in 1964. The militant rebel group, known officially as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has been involved in drug-trafficking, kidnapping and other illicit activity to fund its insurgency campaign.