Odin Sanchez, a former lawmaker held captive since April 2016, was handed over to the Red Cross in the remote jungle region of Choco in western Colombia.
ELN rebels free hostage, setting up talks
"The ELN's humanitarian committee fulfilled its word by handing over Mr Odin," the rebels said on Twitter.
Odin Sanchez, a former lawmaker held captive since April 2016 by the ELN, greets his relatives after being released in Quibdo, Choco department in western Colombia on February 2, 2017
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The government confirmed the announcement. Shortly after, it said it had released the two jailed rebels, Nixon Cobos and Leivis Valero, in the mountains of Santander, in the northeast. This was in turn confirmed by the ELN.
The ELN, or National Liberation Army, is the last active rebel group in Colombia, a country torn for more than half a century by a conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people and left 60,000 missing.
President Juan Manuel Santos is trying to end the fighting for good. He won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his efforts.
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His government is currently implementing a historic peace deal with the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Talks with the ELN were due to open last October. But they broke down when the rebels refused to release Sanchez.
Under the new agreement, the talks are now set to open Tuesday in the Ecuadoran capital, Quito.
Sanchez voluntarily went into ELN custody last year to take the place of his brother Patrocinio, a former governor who had fallen ill after three years in captivity.
His detention had become the main sticking point in efforts to get formal peace talks off the ground.
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'We did it'
His release left Santos beaming with optimism.
"This conflict is over," the president said, as he opened a summit of Nobel Peace Prize winners in Bogota.
"We did it. What seemed impossible, we made possible," he said, vowing the ELN talks would lead to "complete peace."
ELN negotiator Bernardo Tellez said in a video message on Twitter: "We hope that with these reciprocal humanitarian gestures, negotiations can be held to make the endeavor for complete peace in our country truly possible."
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But the negotiations look set to be tricky.
They will mark the fifth attempt to make peace with the ELN, a leftist guerrilla group inspired by Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution.
The ELN has so far been a more difficult negotiating partner than the Marxist FARC, which freed its hostages before starting negotiations with the government in 2012 in Havana.
Incidents involving ELN forces have kept tensions high in recent months.
On Tuesday the rebels announced a new hostage seizure, a Colombian soldier they seized last week.
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The government's chief peace negotiator, Juan Camilo Restrepo, condemned the soldier's abduction.
"Instead of a gesture of peace and de-escalation, the ELN is coming into this negotiation process with a hostile gesture," he said.
He vowed to discuss the captive soldier with his rebel counterparts "at the first opportunity."
Colombian authorities estimate the ELN has some 1,500 members, active mainly in the north and west of the country.
Colombia's territorial and ideological conflict has drawn in dozens of guerrilla and paramilitary groups, drug gangs and state forces over the decades.
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Like the FARC, the ELN formed in 1964 and is blamed for killings and kidnappings over the course of the war.
Both groups have relied on ransom kidnappings and drug trafficking to fund themselves.
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