BOGOTA—Colombian rebels Tuesday rejected a French mission to treat hostages held in jungle camps, including French Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who is believed seriously ill after six years in captivity.
The statement is a blow to French President Nicolas Sarkozy who is working to free Betancourt, a former presidential candidate captured in 2002 and the highest profile hostage held by the FARC, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
A French aircraft carrying a medical mission has sat on the tarmac at a Bogota military base since Thursday waiting for a rebel permission to fly into the jungles to treat Betancourt in a secret rebel camp.
"The French medical mission is not reasonable and even less so when it was not the result of an agreement," the FARC statement dated April 4 and posted on a Web site which often carries rebel communiques.
In the statement, the rebels also insisted that President Alvaro Uribe demilitarize an area the size of New York City in rural Colombia to facilitate an exchange of hostages for jailed rebel fighters.
Uribe, popular at home for driving back the rebels with a U.S.-backed security campaign, has rejected that condition because he says it would allow the FARC to regroup.
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