Colombian FARC guerrillas and government negotiators met in a rebel enclave yesterday to try to hammer out a timetable for agreeing a cease-fire before Sunday as troops massed nearby.
In the latest of a series of ultimatums declared by the increasingly tough President Andres Pastrana, the government said it would close down a big rebel safe haven unless the five days of talks produce concrete results.
For the first time since a rebel climb-down narrowly averted an army offensive into the enclave on Monday night, government peace negotiator Mr Camilo Gomez sat down with commanders from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - known by the Spanish initials FARC.
The meeting, which both sides described as cordial, took place outside the village of Los Pozos deep inside the 16,000-sq-mile chunk of jungle and savanna that President Pastrana gave the rebels to start peace talks in late 1998.
"We had a cordial meeting in which we exchanged ideas. We will continue meeting tomorrow," Mr Gomez told reporters.
"It was a cordial meeting. We will continue tomorrow exchanging points of view," said rebel commander Mr Raul Reyes.
UN special envoy Mr James LeMoyne, whose diplomacy helped avert all-out war, told reporters he was convinced the two sides had a willingness to achieve peace.
In a dramatic and rare negotiating retreat, the Marxist FARC on Monday accepted government demands to start immediate talks on setting a timetable for a cease-fire in a war which has claimed 40,000 lives in a decade.
If they had delayed just a few hours longer, President Pastrana would have ordered tanks and 12,000 men to sweep across the borders of the southern Colombian zone and put a violent end to negotiations to end a 38-year war.
Troops remained massed on the enclave's border.