FARC, govt strike new peace deal

Colombia's government and Marxist FARC rebels on Saturday announced a revised peace deal to end 52 years of armed conflict, after voters rejected a prior peace accord in a referendum.

"We have reached a new final agreement to end the armed conflict, which incorporates changes, clarifications and some new contributions from various social groups, which we have gone through one by one," said a joint statement read out by diplomats from Cuba and Norway, the peace process guarantors.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos stressed that the new peace deal "is a better agreement."

The modified agreement leaves intact the accord's major tenets, including the FARC laying down its arms and becoming a political party. However, it includes a number of "innovations" to several of the key points in the original peace deal, according to the government's lead negotiator Humberto de la Calle.

The new accord was fine-tuned after the groups that opposed the original deal submitted proposed changes as starting points for negotiations.

Santos acknowledged that a suggestion seeking to bar rebel leaders involved in serious crimes from elections was not part of the re-worked peace deal. He also hinted that the new accord would maintain the provision that FARC rebels could avoid prison time by confessing and carrying out acts of reparation to victims.