国际英语新闻:Colombia's FARC rebels confirm capture of army general

BOGOTA, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgency Tuesday confirmed it was holding an army general captured over the weekend, Colombia's Noticias Caracol news network reported.

The general and his two companions were captured Sunday during routine security operations, FARC spokesman Jorge Torres Victoria, alias Pablo Catatumbo, said in a statement delivered in Havana, Cuba, where the rebels and the Colombian government have been holding peace talks.

"On Nov. 16, at around 3 p.m., guerrilla units of the FARC's Ivan Rios bloc carrying out their security tasks, intercepted at one of the mobile checkpoints they maintain along the banks of the Atrato River, the boat transporting the active duty brigadier general of the national army, Ruben Dario Alzate Mora," Catatumbo said.

Once the three "were fully identified, despite their civilian dress, they were captured by our units as enemy military personnel operating in a war zone," the FARC representative said.

While both sides in the struggle have been involved in peace talks for two years, Catatumbo said, it was the government of President Juan Manuel Santos that has insisted on continued fighting.

Santos has refused to call for a ceasefire saying he wants to keep the military pressure on the rebels to come to the negotiating table. The FARC, meanwhile, has unilaterally ceased fighting on two occasions, including at the start of the talks.

"Every day in different parts of the country or abroad, President Santos reiterates the order to step up the fighting against the FARC ... despite the peace talks making progress in Havana," the FARC spokesman said, adding "his minister of defense huffs and puffs again and again about how close they are to capturing the guerrilla commanders."

The rebels, however, are willing "to contribute to the quick and sensible resolution of this problem. The talks should continue, " the spokesman added.

Following Alzate's capture in the western Choco department, Santos ordered suspension of the peace talks, aimed at ending the five-decade-long armed conflict between the rebels and the armed forces, which has claimed some 200,000 lives.