Two Female Koreans Freed: Taliban
'Pakistan Times' Wire Service

GHAZNI: A Taliban spokesman said Saturday that two sick, female South Korean hostages would be released "soon" for the sake of good relations between the Taliban and South Korea. Neither the international Red Cross or the Afghan government could confirm the claim.

The spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the two women would be freed because they are sick. He said the decision had been made by the Taliban's high commanders, but he said it hadn't yet been decided when the women would be freed.

Two Taliban leaders and four South Korean officials met Saturday for the second day of face-to-face talks over the fate of 21 South Korean hostages being held by the militants.

An earlier story said that a Taliban leader taking part in hostage negotiations for the lives of 21 South Koreans said Saturday that the hostages would "definitely" be released and possibly as soon as "today or tomorrow."

Mullah Qari Bashir said that face-to-face negotiations with four Korean officials that began Friday were going well and that the Taliban were sticking with their original demand — that 21 Taliban prisoners be released from prisons in Afghanistan.

"God willing the government (of Afghanistan) and the government of Korea will accept this," Bashir said outside the Afghan Red Cross office in Ghazni. "Definitely these people will be released. God willing our friends (Taliban militants in prison) will be released."

Asked when the Koreans might be freed, he said: "Hopefully today or tomorrow."

"I'm very optimistic. The negotiations are continuing on a positive track," Bashir said.

The Afghan government has said previously that it would not release the prisoners out of fear it would encourage future kidnappings, and South Korea took a cautious approach to the negotiations.

Two top Taliban leaders and four South Korean officials met face-to-face Friday in the first negotiations over the fate of 21 members of a church group held hostage for three weeks, Afghan officials said.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said two members of the top militant council — Mullah Bashir and Mullah Nasorullah — traveled to the central Afghan city of Ghazni, near where the South Koreans were kidnapped on July 19. He said the government in Kabul gave the Taliban a written guarantee that the two officials would be safe.

The meeting began Friday evening at the office of the Afghan Red Cross in Ghazni, said Marajudin Pathan, the local governor. An Afghan official who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive information said the two Taliban leaders, four Korean officials and four International Committee of the Red Cross officials participated.

"We have given them the freedom of secrecy to talk with each other," Pathan said, confirming that no Afghan officials were taking part in the talks.

The South Koreans were the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, and their kidnapping underscores the rise of the Taliban's power in rural Afghanistan over last two years.●