CARACAS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's call on Sunday for Colombia's FARC insurgency to free all its hostages and end a decades-long armed struggle signals a surprising shift of its policy toward Latin America's oldest rebel force.

    That also offers hope of mending the ties between Venezuela and Colombia, analysts said.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez greets supporters during a meeting with PSUV United Socialist Party members in Maracaibo June 7, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    "The guerrilla war is history," Chavez said on his weekly television and radio program, calling into question the existence of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest anti-government rebel group in that country.

    "At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place," he said.

    He urged Alfonso Cano, the FARC's new leader, to release all the hostages from jungle camps.

    "I think the time has come for the FARC to free everyone they have in the mountains. It would be a great, humanitarian gesture in exchange for nothing. That is what I propose to the new (FARC) leader," said the president.

    Chavez said the FARC has "become an excuse for the (US) empire to threaten all of us ... the day that peace arrives in Colombia, the empire will have no excuse."

    Washington has labeled the FARC a terrorist group and joined the Colombian government in accusing Chavez of aiding the group. Chavez has rejected the charges, saying he only had contacts with its leaders for discussion on the prisoner release, a job Chavez has been engaged in for months.

    The FARC has yet to respond to Chavez's latest call.

    POLICY SHIFT AT SPECIAL TIME

    Chavez's comments, in which he publicly addressed the new FARC leader for the first time, appears to mark a shift of his government's policy toward the group just months after he called for the FARC to be recognized as a legitimate insurgent force.

    His call came at a time when the FARC is said to be at its weakest point, or at what some analysts say is a turning point, in years in its decades-long anti-government fight, due to senior leaders' deaths, high-profile defections and battlefield losses.

    Under Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's military onslaught, FARC forces have been almost halved to 8,000, according to government estimates.

    The group acknowledged last month that its top leader and co-founder Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda had died of a heart attack.

    Its second-in-command Raul Reyes was killed by the Colombian army in a March cross-border attack on a rebel camp.

    The FARC is holding some 750 hostages, including 39 high-value hostages whom the group wants to swap for some 500 of its imprisoned members.

    New FARC leader Cano is widely regarded as someone more likely to be ready to enter into negotiations with the Colombian government over the hostage release and possibly long-term peace.

    Colombia's local radio quoted Carlos Lozano, a Colombian newspaper editor who has had past contacts with the FARC, as saying on Sunday that he and former cabinet minister Alvaro Leyva had resumed preliminary efforts for negotiations on a hostage deal with the FARC.

    Colombia Senator Piedad Cordoba, who is also a mediator with the FARC, told Radio Caracol: "We are very close to that release process."

    NEW HOPE FOR VENEZUELA, COLOMBIA TO MEND TIES

    Chavez's statement was welcomed by the Colombia government led by Uribe, a strong U.S ally who has been at odds with Chavez on almost everything from diplomatic guidelines to trade.

    Observers see Chavez's remarks as offering a glimmer of hope that the two countries could mend their long-chilled relations.

    "Hopefully FARC will listen," Colombian Minister of Interior and Justice Carlos Holguin told Caracol television, calling Chavez's proposal "great."

    Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo said the Venezuelan proposal "coincides with what the Colombians have always said that kidnapping has no place in our society...and we demand FARC immediately free all its prisoners."

    Sharing a border line of about 2,200 km, tension between the two countries has mounted time and again in recent years, especially since Uribe last November abruptly called a halt to Chavez's mediation role in the hostage release, as the Venezuelan leader had allegedly broken their agreement.

    Chavez responded by putting the ties "in the freezer" and withdrew the Venezuelan ambassador from Bogota, saying Colombia "deserves a better president."

    Chavez, despite his war of words with Uribe, has this year helped to facilitate the unilateral release of several high-profile hostages who had been held by the FARC for several years.

    But in early March, when the Colombian army launched a cross-border attack against the FARC on the Ecuadorian territory, their ties were chilled again although the tension later eased at a Rio Group summit.

    Their relationship has hit a new low recently, with Colombia and the United States accusing Chavez of giving financial and military support to the FARC, and Venezuela charging that the Colombian troops had crossed into the Venezuelan territory last month. Both sides, however, have denied each other's charges.