The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia promised Thursday to stop recruiting children less than 17, according to AFP.

Colombia's leftist guerrilla group usually recruited members that were at least 15 years old. The group announced its new age requirement on the United Nations' International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers.

"The FARC ... has decided from now on not to incorporate minors under 17 years old into the ranks of the guerrillas, and expresses the wish to soon reach a peace accord with social justice," the rebels' chief peace negotiator Ivan Marquez said.

The guerrilla group has been fighting the government for more than five decades. It has been conducting ongoing peace talks for the past two years to end the conflict that claimed more than 200,000 lives.

Colombia's government and FARC have found some common ground in several issues but still have not found a way to completely end conflict.

FARC and the government resumed peace talks on Feb. 2 after taking a break close to the end of the year, according to AFP.

"We resumed the talks, and are hoping to continue to seek an agreement in the terms known by the people of Colombia and the whole world," a statement from FARC read.

Commander Joaquin Gomez criticized an initiative that would put any peace accord to a national referendum.

"Everything has its time and place, which does not give space to false solutions like referendums with electoral flavors and ambitions beyond what was already agreed," he said.

President Juan Manuel Santos launched the initiative in 2013.

Back in August, the Colombian Constitutional Court upheld a "legal framework" that would allow the guerrilla group to get involved in politics once they lay down their arms, with an exception of rebels responsible for crimes against humanity.

The government and FARC have agreed on three of the six points of the agenda to end conflict since peace talks began.

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