BOGOTA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Colombia's government has called off peace talks with leftist rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN), its peace delegation said on Wednesday, following an attack which killed two soldiers and injured more than two dozen.

The decision is another devastating blow to President Gustavo Petro's cornerstone total peace policy, which looked to remove the ELN from its role in the Andean country's six-decades of internal armed conflict.

"Today the peace process is on hold. Its viability is severely diminished and its continuation can only go ahead with an unequivocal demonstration of peace by the ELN," the government peace delegation said in a post on X.

The government restarted negotiations with the ELN at the end of 2022 and held six rounds of talks with the rebel group in Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela.

The attack which caused the talks to be suspended took place on Tuesday in a rural area of Colombia's Arauca province, which borders Venezuela.

The talks had been in crisis for months after the government decided to begin separate negotiations with a unit in the southwest of the country that had split from the rest of the ELN.

Negotiations froze, with the ELN subsequently restarting kidnappings, an element of its arsenal it had given up during the talks.

Since the end of the ceasefire, the ELN ramped up offensives against the military and police and also resumed bombings on Colombia's network of oil pipelines, contaminating the environment with subsequent oil spills.

Colombia's military also restarted operations against the rebels.

The decision to suspend the peace talks implies the reissue of arrest warrants for the ELN's top commanders, who are currently based in Venezuela and Cuba, according to the government.

There was no immediate comment from the ELN.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombia-government-calls-off-peace-talks-with-eln-rebels-2024-09-19/