HAVANA, Cuba — A unilateral ceasefire declared by the Marxist FARC rebels at the start of peace talks with the Colombian government ended on Sunday after the government refused to join the truce, the group said.

"With pain in my heart, we have to admit that we return to the stage of war that nobody in this country (Colombia) wants," FARC lead negotiator Ivan Marquez told reporters before going into the latest session of the talks aimed at ending Colombia's long, bloody conflict.

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The FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, declared the ceasefire when the talks began on November 19 in Havana, and gave the government two months to also lay down its arms.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos rejected the ceasefire from the beginning, saying the government would maintain the military pressure to keep FARC at the negotiating table.

Colombian officials have called the ceasefire a sham to gain international favor and accused the rebels of continuing their attacks.

Government forces have continued to attack and kill the rebels in their remote strongholds in the jungles and mountains of Colombia. They say the rebels may be planning a new offensive.

Marquez did not disclose their plans, but urged Santos to reconsider the decision not to lay down arms.

The two sides have been fighting since the formation of the FARC as a communist agrarian movement in 1964 in what is now Latin America's longest-running insurgency and a relic of the Cold War.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict, which the FARC says is aimed at ending Colombia's long history of social inequality and the concentration of land and wealth in relatively few hands.

Officials say the FARC has been weakened by a U.S.-backed, 10-year-long government offensive.

But the group still has an estimated 9,000 fighters capable of continuing to inflict damage on Colombia's infrastructure and slow the government's plans to increase foreign investment in mining and oil operations.

The agenda for the talks calls for the two sides to address a number of difficult issues, starting with rural development.

In recent days, they have publicly disagreed about a sweeping land redistribution proposal by the FARC to hand over 25 million hectares (62 million acres), or more than 20 percent of the country's land, to the poor.

Government lead negotiator Humberto de la Calle this week called for a quicker pace to the talks, which Santos has said he wants ended by November. 

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BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombia's government is seeking peace with the country's biggest rebel group, the FARC, and could consider also holding talks with a second guerrilla movement to end five decades of war, the country's president said on Monday. 

"(W)e have had exploratory conversations with the FARC to seek an end to the conflict," President Juan Manuel Santos said in a televised address from the presidential palace, confirming weeks of swirling rumors that his government had started behind-the-scenes discussions.

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A successful peace agreement with the rebels would secure Santos a place in history as the leader who ended a conflict that has killed tens of thousands over the years and left the Andean nation's reputation in tatters. 

Santos also said his government would learn from the mistakes of so many previous leaders who tried but failed to clinch a lasting cease-fire with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. 

He said that the military would continue its operations "throughout every centimeter" of Colombia while talks continued. Santos did not provide further details, but said he would reveal more about the talks in the coming days. 

The president has said he would consider peace talks with the FARC only if he was certain the drug-funded group would negotiate in good faith. The last peace effort ended in shambles. 

Colombia 'milestone' as FARC frees captives after over a decade

In response to a Reuters interview published on Monday with the head of the nation's second biggest rebel group, Santos said the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, could also be involved in the peace talks. 

"Today the ELN has expressed, via an international news agency, its interest in participating in conversations to put an end to the violence," the president said in his brief speech. 

"I tell that group that, within the same framework, they too can be part of the effort to end the conflict." 

'People's army'?
The FARC, which calls itself "the people's army" defending peasant rights, has battled about a dozen governments since appearing in 1964, when its founder, Manuel Marulanda, and 48 rebels fought off thousands of troops in jungle hide-outs. 

The group has faced its biggest setbacks in recent years as U.S.-trained special forces use sophisticated technology and spy networks to track the leaders. 

A string of defeats began in 2008 with a cross-border military raid into Ecuador that killed its second in command. Marulanda died of a heart attack weeks later and was replaced by Alfonso Cano, who was later killed too. 

But there has been a recent uptick in violence. Attacks on oil industry installations have jumped 40 percent over the last year, while violent clashes between troops and indigenous protesters led to withering criticism of Santos for not protecting the soldiers. 

Six people were killed, including two children, in a FARC bomb attack in central Meta province on Sunday.

Political future for rebels?
Details of the talks are still being worked out, the source said, but the negotiations could take place in Cuba or Norway. President Barack Obama is aware of the process and is in agreement, the Reuters source said. 

According to Colombian newspaper El Espectador, among the central issues going into the talks will be whether the FARC will be granted a political role, whether lands lost during the fighting will be returned to farmers, whether the rebels will lay down their arms, and whether rebel leaders will be subject to extradition.

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In 1988 former President Andres Pastrana ceded the FARC a safe haven the size of Switzerland to promote talks. The rebels took advantage of the breathing space to train fighters, build more than 25 airstrips to fly drug shipments, and set up prison camps to hold its hostages. 

A Colombian intelligence source told Reuters earlier that as part of the deal to hold talks, Santos had agreed FARC rebels would not be extradited to any other country to stand trial. 

(Link to Spanish-language article in El Espectador)

Colombia's congress passed a constitutional reform in June that set the legal basis for eventual peace with the rebels. The reform prohibits guerrilla leaders accused of crimes against humanity from holding political office. 

Guarded hope
News of the latest peace effort was met with guarded hope among Colombians. 

"Honestly, full peace is probably never possible. Of course it would be good ... but really, an end to the war? I think an end to the world will happen first," said Maria Eugenia Martinez as she sold cigarettes in an upscale Bogota neighborhood. 

Colombians dismantle police post in protest at FARC clashes

Santos discussed the peace process during talks in Havana with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro before the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia earlier this year, the intelligence source said. 

In a recent interview with Reuters, Santos said he would only start a peace process "with a high probability of success. I would not start a process to fail." 

News of the talks had already angered Santos' predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, who has slammed Santos for wanting "peace at any cost" and allowing the rebels to rearm and regroup. 

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Santos, a former defense minister, won election in 2010 by a landslide, pledging to cut unemployment and continue Uribe's hard line security policies, while fostering economic growth and reducing poverty. 

While much of the world struggles to shore up fiscal accounts, Colombia's financial management, buoyant economy and security advances have helped shield its economy from too much fallout from the international financial crisis. 

Once an outcast for most foreign companies, the Andean nation has become a magnet for investment as a U.S.-backed offensive against the FARC sharply reduced the number of kidnappings and murders. The nation was rewarded last year with an investment grade from three major credit-rating agencies. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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As the French journalist Romeo Langlois dropped down from a helicopter into the Colombian jungle alongside anti-narcotics forces on Saturday, an unfriendly group of heavily-armed guerrillas awaited them.

Langlois, a French citizen living in Colombia, was making a documentary for news channel France24 about the Colombian government’s attempts to dismantle drug labs in the jungles of Caqueta. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, earns much of its money producing coca, which thrives in the heat and humidity of southern Colombia.

A brutal firefight ensued, according to media reports, and Langlois was shot. He has since been taken hostage, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told reporters on Sunday, according to Reuters.

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Langlois, who has been in Colombia about 12 years, removed his bulletproof vest and helmet and ran toward the rebels, possibly in a bid to prove he was not a member of the armed forces, said Pinzon after speaking to one of the soldiers with the journalist.

The FARC, dressed in civilian clothes, shot at the troops from nearby houses, Pinzon said. Heavy rains in the area made it difficult for reinforcements to immediately aid the troops.

Three troops and a police officer were killed during the firefight. Five cocaine labs used to produce coca paste were destroyed. That's a small dent in an operation where one FARC division produces thousands of pounds of cocaine every week. (One pound of cocaine nets tens of of thousands of dollars on the street.) The FARC, which produces much of the world's cocaine, moves the drugs north, through Ecuador, to Mexico where they are sold to drug cartels, according to the BBC.

After the firefight, the FARC guerillas retreated into the jungle. No FARC fighters were killed.

France24 is working with officials to find Langlois and is in contact with his family.

"We know that it is a dangerous region. We are of course concerned but we trust Romeo, who knows the region well and has a lot of experience," said Nahida Nakad, head of the channel’s foreign audiovisual editorial operations, in the statement.

Langlois’ disappearance could prompt international pressure on the FARC which won some goodwill when it released 10 members of the armed forces this month after they had been held hostage in jungle camps for more than a decade, Reuters reported.

FARC, founded in 1964, is one of the last Marxist guerilla groups in the Americas, according to France24. Labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, it has relied on the drug trade and hostages to pay for weapons, food and uniforms.

One of the group’s most famous hostages was Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician who was held hostage for more than six years. She was released in 2008.

Ingrid Betancourt: Profile of a Hostage

The FARC has made gestures toward peace in recent months, according to the BBC. The group’s leadership has also pledged to stop taking hostages for ransom.

But Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos warned there has not been enough evidence that FARC truly intends to give up on taking hostages, according to France24.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Colombia's FARC rebels freed 10 members of the armed forces held hostage in jungle prison camps for more than a decade on Monday, the last of a group the drug-funded group had used as bargaining chips to pressure the government.

The four soldiers and six policemen were released to a humanitarian mission led by the International Committee of the Red Cross in what the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia called a gesture of peace.

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Wearing olive fatigues and seeming well fed and relatively healthy, the 10 men stepped off a helicopter provided by Brazil after the Marxist rebels freed them in a remote area of southern Colombia.

Following their successful recovery from the jungle, the hostages were taken to the city of Villavicencio, received by medics of the security forces and some immediately reunited with family members in the VIP lounge of the small airport, according to a report on local English language news website Colombia Reports.

It said the release marked a “milestone” in the Colombia conflict.

Smiling and joking with a medic, one soldier left the aircraft draped in the Colombian flag and skipping with joy. Each carried a plastic bag of belongings and one was accompanied by what appeared to be a small pig that had been his pet in the jungle. Another had what looked like a monkey on his shoulder.

"To these victims of the intolerance and cruelty of the guerrillas, soldiers and policemen of Colombia, welcome to freedom," President Juan Manuel Santos said from the presidential palace. "Freedom has been long delayed, but now it's yours."

The release could signal that the FARC is taking tentative steps toward a bid for talks that may end Latin America's oldest insurgency after five decades of killing and destroying economic infrastructure.

But many Colombians remain skeptical that the guerrilla group, which is still believed to be holding as many as 700 civilian hostages for ransom, will lay down its weapons after having used previous peace talks to strengthen their forces.

The logistics of feeding and moving hostages has become more difficult for the FARC as an increasingly effective U.S.-backed military offensive has killed its leaders and driven the guerrillas back into ever more remote regions.

As a result, the police say, cases of kidnapping for ransom have fallen 90 percent since 2000 to 208 incidents last year, while the number of extortion cases surged 33 percent in 2011 from the previous year.

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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