By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

Softening an earlier refusal, the Bush administration said yesterday that it was willing to help monitor negotiations between the Colombian government and the
country's largest guerrilla group if they continue to proceed along a positive track.

"We do not discard the possibility of some participation in the peace process inside Colombia" in the future, said Peter F. Romero, assistant secretary of state for
Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Romero's statement came after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell raised questions at the State Department following a U.S. decision not to join a meeting yesterday
between foreign observers and guerrilla leaders in a rebel-controlled Colombian enclave. After hearing of news reports citing a U.S. "boycott," Powell asked Romero
for clarification and then asked that the clarification be made public.

Diplomats from 25 governments from Latin America, Europe, Japan and Canada -- met yesterday for the first time with leaders of the leftist Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. The Colombian government and the FARC invited the foreign delegations to monitor the peace process following a
resumption of talks last month.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana last week urged the United States to accept an invitation from the FARC to attend yesterday's meeting. The administration
declined, publicly repeating its insistence that it would not speak to the FARC until guerrillas responsible for the 1999 killing of three American humanitarian aid
workers in Colombia were turned over to authorities.

In his statement yesterday, Romero made no mention of the dead Americans, or of three American missionaries who disappeared in 1994 and were also believed to
be FARC victims. A senior administration official said in response to questions that they remain "an ingredient" and "a key factor" of U.S. policy, but declined to
repeat last week's characterization of them as the only ingredient.

"We did not think it appropriate for the United States to attend this particular meeting," Romero said of yesterday's diplomatic gathering in Los Pozos, Colombia.
But, he said, such participation might be warranted if the talks reach "a critical mass."

One official, who made no mention of Powell's participation, said that the administration decided to reformulate its position on attending the talks out of concern that
previous policy risked painting the United States into a corner.

If the peace process makes significant progress, the official said, U.S. participation in the observer group could become key.

The United States has contributed $1.3 billion, primarily military equipment and training, to Pastrana's Plan Colombia, a several-year program designed to eliminate
drug crops and establish a government security presence in cultivation areas held by the guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups. Although the drug eradication
program so far has consisted largely of aerial fumigation of large-scale coca plantations, it includes an alternative development component designed to reward small
farmers who agree to eliminate their coca crops.

A senior official noted that the FARC -- which is on the official U.S. list of terrorist organizations -- has left a "woeful trail of unkept commitments and broken
promises over two years of on and off negotiations."

"In general, we do not discard" the possibility of participating in the peace process, the official said, "but we haven't seen the seriousness of purpose nor enough
progress made to even consider it" at present.

Asked at yesterday's meeting in Colombia about the U.S. refusal to attend, FARC leader Manuel Marulanda told reporters that "if they don't want to come, that's
their business. We've invited them several times. It may be that they come in the future."

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