{{Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said he was ready to start negotiating peace with the country’s second-largest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), “as soon as possible”.}}
The announcement comes a day after the ELN released a Canadian hostage it had been holding for months, Gernot Wober.
Santos hailed the rebels’ release and said “the government is ready to start a dialogue with the ELN as soon as possible,” in a statement released by his office on Thursday.
Santos had conditioned any peace talks with the ELN on freeing Wober and all other captives it holds in the nation’s jungles.
ELN leaders have expressed interest in starting peace negotiations similar to those currently under way with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
It is not known how many hostages the group holds.
aljazeera
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