Chavez says close to sealing FARC hostage meeting

By Herbert Villarraga

BALLENAS, Colombia (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday he was close to securing an initial meeting with Colombian guerrillas for talks on releasing scores of hostages they have held for years in secret jungle camps.

Chavez has stepped in to broker a deal between President Alvaro Uribe and the FARC guerrillas, but attempts to hold preliminary talks in Venezuela with a rebel delegate had appeared to stall over security guarantees.

"We are waiting for the necessary contacts, the minimum security conditions for the meeting. I am certain this will happen," Chavez told reporters before talks with Uribe in Colombia after inaugurating a cross-border gas pipeline.

"This is a question of days now. Don't be surprised when one night I announce that we have held the meeting," he said.

The involvement of Chavez and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in negotiations have renewed hopes for hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt snatched in 2002 and three Americans taken a year after.

Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency, the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, says it wants to exchange jailed rebels for about 50 hostages, but it demands Uribe demilitarize a safe haven for the swap.

Popular for his U.S.-backed campaign that has reduced violence and driven back the rebels, Uribe refuses to withdraw troops, saying that would allow the FARC to regroup in a rural area he says is an important route for guerrilla cocaine trafficking.

While Uribe has been one of Washington's staunchest allies, Chavez has used Venezuela's oil wealth to promote his socialist ideas to counter U.S. free-market policies in the region. But the two leaders have maintained a pragmatic relationship.

Families of the hostages hope Chavez's left-wing credentials and growing regional status will persuade the FARC leadership to come to the negotiating table with a proposal to free their relatives.

A former presidential candidate, Betancourt was kidnapped with her campaign aide, Clara Rojas, who has since given birth to a son while in captivity. They have not been heard from since 2003.

Washington is pressing for the release of U.S. Defense Department contractors Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes, who were seized when their light aircraft crashed on a counternarcotics mission.