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GHAZNI, Afghanistan: Afghan authorities demanded on Sunday the release of 16 women among 22 South Korean Christian aid workers held by the Taliban, most of them said to be ill after 11 days in captivity.
A special envoy dispatched from Seoul was meanwhile due to meet President Hamid Karzai amid growing concern over the group, whom the Islamic extremists have threatened to kill if eight of their men are not freed from Afghan jails.
The group leader – a 42-year-old pastor – was shot dead on Wednesday and his body dumped in a desert.
A delegation of tribal elders and religious scholars was seeking a face-to-face meeting with Taliban leaders directing the hostage crisis, said a leading member of a government-appointed negotiating team, Mahmood Gailani.
"The first agenda is to release women prisoners because in Islamic law and Afghan culture we cannot harm women and should not take woman as hostages and prisoners," Gailani, a parliamentarian, told AFP.
"We will demand immediate release of women prisoners in first phase and then will have negotiations," he said.
There have already been regular contacts between the rebels and government negotiators, but the meeting would be the first face-to-face talks with the top members of the Taliban involved in the crisis, he said.
The South Korean church which sent the aid mission said it included 16 women and seven men.
Gailani said the release of Taliban prisoners, as demanded by the rebels, was not an option but others could be considered.
Asked if this may include paying a ransom, he said: "We are still exploring our options. We should hear from their side and what their demands are."
The government was widely criticised when it released five Taliban prisoners in March to free an Italian hostage and Karzai vowed afterwards such a deal would not be repeated.
A South Korean presidential envoy, Baek Jong-Chun, was meanwhile due to meet Karzai later Sunday, the Afghan president's office said. The envoy would also meet with foreign ministry officials, he said.
The Taliban on Saturday expressed impatience over the pace of negotiations, saying that 17 of the group were ill.
"If anything happens to them, the Afghan government and the South Korean government will be responsible," spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said. "They have to speed up the process of releasing our suggested prisoners."
A man claiming to be a local-level Taliban told AFP on Sunday that medicine for hostages – said to have been separated into smaller groups held in different areas – had been received and was being sent to them.
The South Koreans were seized July 19 while travelling on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar in Ghazni province about 140 kilometres (90 miles) south of Kabul.
The Taliban have also demanded that Seoul withdraw its 200 troops serving with US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. South Korea responded by saying it would pull them out as previously scheduled by the end of the year.
The militants are also holding a hostage from Germany. They have demanded the withdrawal of Germany's 3,000 troops from the war-torn country.
- AFP/so
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