BOGOTA, Feb. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Colombia, which is holding the second round of peace talks with the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN), said on Saturday that a major breakthrough was made in the talks thanks to the mutual trust and sincerity demonstrated by both sides.

    In a brief speech to mark the development, President Alvaro Uribe granted a legal status of freedom to the ELN commanders, Antonio Garcia and Ramiro Vargas, saying the political award would encourage the rebels to understand and value the benefits of peace in the country.

    As part of the achievements made through the talks held in Cuba, the government and the ELN have enhanced mutual trust and set up a mechanism for future talks, according to an official statement.

    The government suspended arrest warrants against the ELN leaders after they demanded before talks that they be recognized as heads of a political force, not terrorists.

    "We can't be treated as terrorists, or delinquents," the ELN military chief Antonio Garcia was quoted as saying by local media.     

    The ELN rebel group began the new round of talks Friday with Luis Carlos Restrepo, the Colombian peace commissioner.

    Garcia, head of the ELN delegation, said late Thursday that this round of talks would begin to set the agenda which would lead to a roadmap for ELN disarmament. The 5,000-strong rebel group, which was founded in 1964, is the second largest in the South American country.

    "We want to build a peace process that will create increasing space for democratic participation," Garcia said.

    For his part, Restrepo told reporters that "There is a mutual will for peace and the important thing now is to generate confidence in the process ... so that we can find a way to end the violence that has caused so much pain to our country."

    The first round of talks between the two parties took place in Havana on Dec. 16-22 of last year. The mediators included Gabriel Garcia Marquez, literature winner of 1982's Nobel Prize, and representatives from Switzerland, Spain and Norway.

    An agreement between the ELN and the government is considered positive to the efforts to persuade the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest rebel group, to come to the negotiating table and end the country's nearly four-decades-old internal conflicts. Enditem