S. Korean Envoy to Meet Taliban Kidnappers

CBNNews.com

August 2, 2007

CBNNews.com - South Korean and Afghan officials have agreed to hold talks with the Taliban in order to seek the release of the remaining 21 South Korean captives. Officials were seeking a place to meet Thursday.

The Taliban have agreed to meet with South Korea's representative.

Jim Jacobson, the president of Christian Freedom International - an organization dedicated to helping Christians persecuted for their faith - talked with Pat Robertson about the hostage situation in Afghanistan. Click play to watch the interview now.

A man who identified himself as a Taliban spokesman denied the claim that the South Koreans had requested direct talks with the militants. But he said the captors would be willing to attend such a meeting if it was held in Taliban-controlled territory.

The Taliban "want to negotiate directly with the Koreans because the Kabul administration is not sincere about releasing the Taliban prisoners," he told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The Taliban have already killed two of the 23 South Koreans kidnapped on July 19. But after another deadline passed Wednesday, Ahmadi said the remaining hostages were still alive.

Meanwhile, a party of eight South Korean lawmakers left for Washington Thursday in order to enlist the aid of United States to help negotiate for the release of the hostages. Earlier diplomatic efforts by the South Koreans had failed to sway Afghan government from its refusal to comply with Taliban demands to secure the hostages release.

Afghan Army Warns Locals of Possible Military Action

Afghan army helicopters dropped paper leaflets in local villages in the Ghazni province. The printed notes were meant to warn citizens of upcoming military action that might be necessary to free the hostages. The province is where the church group was kidnapped while traveling by bus from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said the mission, days or weeks away, had long been planned and had no connection with the hostage crisis. However, military troops deployed to the region could put the Taliban under further pressure.

Negroponte Rules Out Military Force To End Standoff

At a meeting in the Philippines, South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte agreed to place top priority on freeing the hostages safely, ruling out a military attempt to end the standoff, a South Korean official said Thursday.

In Washington, the South Korean delegation was to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns and national security adviser Stephen Hadley. They also planned to meet U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, South Korea's former foreign minister.

"We will sincerely plead with the United States to take more substantial and meaningful measures to resolve this crisis," Rep. Cheon Young-se of the liberal Democratic Labor Party said before the delegation set off.

South Korea has sent a presidential envoy to Afghanistan and President Roh Moo-hyun has spoken by phone to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. But the Afghan government has remained opposed to a prisoner swap, concerned it would encourage more kidnappings. Afghanistan came under criticism from the U.S. and other Western governments this year for releasing prisoners to win the release of an Italian hostage.

The Taliban spokesman said two female captives were sick and could possibly die from their illness. A doctor who heads a private clinic said Afghan physicians would try to visit the hostages Friday and take them medicine.

The man also said that Mullah Omar, the Taliban's elusive leader, has appointed three members of the group's high council to oversee the hostage situation. The three can order the killings of the South Koreans at any time, he said.

Source: The Associated Press

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