Negotiators hope to strike a lasting peace deal with Colombia’s second largest armed rebel group: the National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish acronym, ELN.

CCTV America’s Jim Spellman has the latest.

“We want to encourage society to participate in different regions, so that can be used as a basis to agree with the ELN on measures to build.” Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos said.

The ELN talks come after earlier this month Colombians narrowly voted down a peace deal with the country’s biggest rebel group, the FARC.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos- who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts- is hoping to bring that peace deal back from the brink. A cease-fire with the FARC is in place through the end of the year.

ELN and the FARC are both radical leftists groups that formed in 1964.

Both groups have fought for a greater share of wealth and natural resources for poor people in rural areas and have been part of a complex civil war that has killed more than 200 thousand and left at least 25-thousand missing.

Both groups have used kidnapping and extortion and are involved in drug trafficking. The FARC gave up kidnapping for ransom in 2012.

ELN has targeted oil infrastructure with bombings and other attacks.

Government crackdowns have left the groups with less power and perhaps more ready to negotiate.

Peter Vincent on Colombia’s efforts to negotiate with the ELN

For more on Colombia’s efforts to negotiate with the ELN, CCTV America’s Mike Walter spoke to Peter Vincent, assistant director general of international policy with Borderpol, an international security organization.