BOGOTA, Colombia—Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos acknowledged Wednesday that his government may miss a fast-approaching deadline to sign a peace deal with rebels and end the main part of the country’s decades-long conflict.
“I’m not going to sign a bad agreement to meet a date,” Santos said at a public event. It was his first public statement acknowledging that the two sides may miss the March 23 deadline.
Santos says if the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have not come up with an acceptable deal, they will simply set a new deadline.
The two sides have come to agreements on many key issues in recent months during talks in Havana, but still have to hammer out a plan for disarming the guerrillas. A smaller rebel group has not joined the talks.
