CUBA and Norway said on Wednesday night that they had brokered an agreement from liberation army Farc to free a Colombian general whose capture had jeopardised peace negotiations.

A statement said Farc and Bogota had agreed “on the conditions for the release” of Colombian army General Ruben Dario Alzate and four others recently taken captive by Farc.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos immediately celebrated the accord, saying that government negotiators would now return to peace talks in Havana as soon as all the prisoners had been released.

The brief statement by the international guarantors did not say when the captives would be freed or what the conditions had been, saying only that the International Red Cross would play a role as it has in previous releases.

The development came on the second anniversary of the start of the peace talks.