CARACAS, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Colombia's leftist ELN guerrillas held talks in Caracas with Colombian and Venezuelan officials as part of President Hugo Chavez's efforts to broker a humanitarian accord, Venezuela said on Saturday. The talks with ELN, or National Liberation Army, follow Chavez's recent visit to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to seek a peace deal in Colombia's 40-year-old armed conflict. A presidential press statement said Chavez had met on Friday night in Caracas with Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, adding that Venezuela's envoy to Colombia participated in talks between Restrepo and the ELN delegation. "(Chavez) said the ambassador to Venezuela in Colombia, Pavel Rondon, participated in one of the meetings that the special delegation of the National Liberation Army (ELN), led by the special envoy Pablo Beltran, held in the capital city with the Colombian High Commissioner for Peace, Luis Carlos Restrepo," the statement said. A presidential press official told Reuters on Saturday that the capital city in question was in fact Caracas. The statement did not describe the other meetings that included the ELN. Chavez hopes to broker an agreement between the FARC, Colombia's largest rebel group, and that nation's government for a hostage release program, and has offered to host talks with rebels in Venezuelan territory. The ELN, considerably smaller than then FARC, has held several rounds of peace talks with Colombian authorities in Cuba.
