The Colombian government hopes a peace deal with dissident factions of the former FARC rebel group will be signed and implemented before the end of President Gustavo Petro’s term in roughly two years, the head of its negotiating team said Friday.

The Second Marquetalia (Segunda Marquetalia) was formed by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who initially accepted the historic 2016 peace agreement that disarmed, disbanded and reincarnated Latin America’s largest rebel organization into a political party , but decided to take up arms again three years later, because government commitments remained unenforceable.

Peace talks with the group — military intelligence estimates it has just under 1,800 members — and the government are expected to begin on June 24 in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

The government of the social democrat Mr. Petro, the first president in Colombia’s history who belongs to the left, is seeking to end the six-decade civil war that has claimed the lives of some half a million people through negotiations.

He wants “serious, consistent negotiation, without shocks, which will achieve in the shortest possible time results for the country, which will be final,” Armando Novoa told Reuters news agency.

“If possible, we want an agreement with the Second Marketalia to be signed before the end of the term of the current government (…) before the two years have passed,” he explained. “We are cautiously optimistic,” he added.

The talks will not include the issue of declaring a ceasefire, unlike negotiations with other organizations, because the Second Marchetalia has pledged not to carry out civilian abductions and launch attacks against security forces.

“We are not discussing a mutual ceasefire, but de-escalation measures,” Mr Novois said.

The next rounds of talks will take place in other locations, and in Colombia, he added.

This particular peace process has to overcome legal obstacles, because the leaders of the organization had initially accepted the agreement with the FARC, but then backed out, which means that they are now only entitled to surrender. Mr. Novoa said, however, that he believes that a solution can be found that will be legal.

Some experts have suggested that this could be resolved by granting amnesty to leaders of the faction. For Armando Novoa however, everything depends on the results of the negotiations.

The government is simultaneously conducting separate peace negotiations with the ELN (Army of National Liberation, Guberrists) and the EMC (Central General Staff, also ex-FARC).