Bogota - The army yesterday began pulling the last 120 soldiers out of a vast swath of south-eastern Colombia - an area the size of Switzerland - removing the final obstacle to the start of peace talks with Marxist rebels.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the oldest and largest rebel group in the hemisphere, had called on the government to withdraw all security forces from five towns covering 41,000 square kms as a condition for starting the first peace talks in six years.
