Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas on Sunday freed an army general and two others, opening the way for a resumption of peace talks interrupted by their capture two weeks ago.
"Freed ... in perfect condition," President Juan Manuel Santos said on his Twitter account.
He said Brigadier General Ruben Alzate and his fellow captives would be reunited with their families as soon as weather permitted.
Military operations had been halted for the handover in the dank, jungle-covered region bordered by Panama.
Santos had made the release of the captives a condition for resuming the two-year-old talks, seen as the best chance yet of ending the 50-year-old guerrilla war.
Alzate, Corporal Jorge Rodriguez and army adviser Gloria Urrego were captured by rebels November 16 as they traveled by boat without a security detail to visit a civilian energy project in the remote department of Choco.
The 55-year-old general is the highest ranking officer ever captured by the FARC.
He heads an army task force fighting the rebels and drug traffickers in Choco, an impoverished region that has been hard hit by the conflict.
The FARC said Saturday preparations were in place to release the three to a party from the International Committee of the Red Cross and representatives of Norway and Cuba, guarantors of the peace talks.
A Colombian news agency close to the FARC, Anncol, said a rebel peace negotiator, Pastor Alape, and the commander of the unit that captured the general were involved in the handover.
In a show of good faith, the FARC on Tuesday freed two other soldiers who were captured in fighting November 9 in the department of Arauca.
The speed with which the crisis was resolved showed that both sides were keen to avoid an escalation that could do permanent damage to the peace talks, said Angelika Rettberg, an expert on the peace process.
"The peace process already was showing signs of inertia," she said.
The talks in Havana have made halting progress since they began in November 2012, but a comprehensive peace agreement has remained elusive.
Getting them back on a sound footing may not be easy, some observers believe.
"It will be difficult for the peace talks to resume as if nothing had happened," said Christian Voelkel, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
"In the long run, this episode will be felt in Havana," he said.
The FARC's leader, Timoleon Jimenez, who goes by the alias Timochenko, warned pointedly last week that the government's suspension had "destroyed trust," adding: "Things can't just resume as they were."
The conflict, the oldest in Latin America, has claimed the lives of more than 220,000 people and uprooted 5.3 million more.
The FARC has justified its capture of the army hostages as legitimate acts of war taken in the absence of a ceasefire.
Santos has repeatedly rejected the rebels' demands for a ceasefire, saying it would strengthen their hand.
Founded in 1964, the FARC has about 8,000 fighters and is the largest of two leftist guerrilla groups active in Colombia.
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