Colombia's Roman Catholic Church said on Tuesday it accepted a government request to try to persuade leftist ELN rebels to free seven foreign tourists they kidnapped from a jungle ruin.
The National Liberation Army, a Marxist group known as ELN and once led by radical Catholic priests, is holding four Israelis, a Briton, a Spaniard and a German. The backpackers were kidnapped on Sept. 12 in the Sierra Nevada mountains near the ancient Indian "Lost City" in northern Colombia.
The ELN, which has been fighting the state for 39 years, on Monday claimed responsibility for seizing the foreigners.
The rebels said they abducted the young backpackers to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the military coup that overthrew socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende.
The ELN, which kidnaps hundreds of people a year for ransom, made no financial demands and said it wanted a "peaceful solution" to the kidnapping.
"The proper thing to do is wait for a statement from the ELN commanders. We want them to get in direct contact, so we can find a way to avoid a military solution," Dario Echeverry, head of the Bishop's Conference Conciliation Committee, told local radio.
Two senior ELN commanders are being held in a jail near the city of Medellin, and have often acted as go-betweens with rebels in Colombia's jungles and mountains.
About 2,000 troops, backed by helicopters, are searching for the foreigners on the jungle slopes of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada range. Last week, President Alvaro Uribe urged the ELN to free the hostages and start peace talks.
The church is among the most respected institutions in this deeply Catholic nation and has often mediated with rebels fighting in a war which claims thousands of lives every year.
More people are kidnapped in Colombia than anywhere else in the world. In 2002, about 30 foreigners were abducted here, mostly by leftist rebels.