BOGOTA, June 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Thursday called on the anti-government National Liberation Army (ELN) to lay down arms and return to peace talks.

    "I repeat, if the ELN agrees to a ceasefire, the government will agree to halt military operations against the ELN," said Uribe before his meeting with 29 former ELN members who earlier laid down their arms.

    "I want to offer the ELN all the possibilities of peace," he said, asking the ELN to call on the international community to facilitate the peace talks.

    Uribe also said his government has committed itself to peace and does not require the ELN to demobilize or disarm at once.

    "What we require is a ceasefire. Demobilization and disarmamentare the finish line," he said.

    The ELN, with 4,500 combatants, is Colombia's second biggest anti-government organization behind the Revolutionary Armed Forcesof Colombia (FARC). The government and the ELN, meditated by Mexico, had been trying for a year to reach an agreement on launching peace talks, but the ELN suspended its contact with the government on April 18 due to its dissatisfaction with Mexico.

    The country has been locked in a four-decade civil war, the longest in Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries fight one another. The conflicts kill more than 3,000 people every year. Enditem