Colombia rebels told to set hostage talks terms

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian FARC rebels need to spell out the terms for talks aimed at breaking a deadlock over a deal to free captives held for as long as a decade, a group that has brokered past hostage deals said in a letter on Tuesday.

The group's communique, directed to FARC rebel commander Alfonso Cano, is the latest missive from the group led by left-wing Senator Piedad Cordoba, who has been instrumental in brokering accords with Latin America's oldest insurgency.

"It is urgent to define the framework within which an agreement can be reached, setting the time, method and place, so we can contribute to it taking place," the letter said.

Cordoba, an ally of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez, helped broker the release of a group of FARC hostages last year and another six who were freed last month in an operation carried out by the Red Cross.

The FARC -- Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- has fought the state for more than four decades, helped by its financial gains from extortion, kidnapping and trade in the country's huge cocaine business.

But the guerrillas are under heavy pressure from President Alvaro Uribe's U.S.-backed military campaign. They lost three top commanders last year and have been driven back into remote jungles and mountains.

Guerrilla commanders may be trying to gain political space with the recent unilateral hostage releases while attempting to show they still have military capacity with ambushes on army patrols and occasional urban bombs, analysts say.

A deal to exchange jailed rebels for 22 police and soldiers held for as long as 10 years in rebel jungle camps appears to be stalled over FARC demands Uribe pull back troops from a rural area to create a safe haven for negotiations.

But it is unclear whom the rebel command want to be released in any such deal and whether Cano is still demanding a New York City-sized safe haven in southern Colombia and also the release of FARC commanders held in U.S. jails.