Salvadoran Peace Talks to Resume Tuesday in Mexico

United Nations peace envoy Alvaro de Soto left El Salvador on Thursday after secret meetings with government, union and business leaders, diplomats said.

Hours later, U.N. representatives in Mexico said that a new round of peace talks between the rightist government and leftist guerrillas will take place in Mexico City beginning Tuesday. De Soto, personal representative of U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, will mediate in the talks, they added, but gave no other details.

De Soto made no comment to journalists at the end of his three-day visit to El Salvador.

He is mediating between the U.S.-backed government and rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in a bid to end a decade of guerrilla war in this Central American nation.

The Mexico meeting will deal with a peace agenda drawn up last month in secret talks in Caracas.

At the top of the agenda are the armed forces, which the guerrillas insist must be reduced in size and purged of hard-liners and human rights violators. Other points to be discussed are human rights, the improvement of the justice system, modification of electoral laws, constitutional reforms, social and economic problems and U.N. verification of agreements.

The Caracas talks resulted in a pledge by both sides to seek a cease-fire by mid-September, if agreements can first be reached on the military and a range of political reforms.

Earlier peace talks broke down last October, shortly before the guerrillas launched an offensive in which more than 2,000 people died.