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SEOUL: South Korea said Monday its negotiators in Afghanistan had been allowed to speak by telephone to one of the 21 Korean hostages under threat of death from Taliban insurgents.
"During our telephone contact with the Taliban on August 4, our side was allowed to speak to one of the hostages. We had a brief conversation. I cannot disclose the name and details," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.
It was thought to be the first direct contact between Seoul officials and the captives since 23 aid workers were seized on July 19 while travelling by bus in insurgency-hit southern Afghanistan.
The guerrillas have since shot dead two of them and threatened more killings unless their own militants jailed in Afghanistan are freed in exchange for the Koreans.
Seoul, which says it is powerless to meet this demand, was closely watching a weekend summit in Washington between US President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Karzai told CNN that he would do everything to help free the South Koreans, "other than encouraging hostage-taking and terrorism." Both Kabul and Washington fear that any prisoner release would encourage more abductions.
The Taliban are proposing face-to-face talks with Korean negotiators but problems have arisen on a possible venue.
Spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said Sunday more of the captives could be murdered at any time.
"In the past two days there has not been any contact between us and the Koreans or the Kabul administration," he told AFP by telephone.
"So the killing of the hostages is inevitable and since we've not set a deadline for them, they could be killed at any moment, any time," he said.
But Ahmadi also said the Taliban were ready to meet South Korean negotiators in "areas under control of the Taliban" or in another country, so long as the Taliban representatives received a UN guarantee of safe return.
The Seoul government has not publicly asked the US or Afghanistan for a prisoner exchange, only for "flexibility" in negotiations, but activists demand that Washington act.
About 100 of them rallied near the US embassy Monday, chanting slogans including: "US should hold dialogue with Taliban" and "We want US to pull out troops from Korean peninsula."
In a letter addressed to Bush, the protesters demanded Washington to allow a prisoner swap.
"The US must assume responsibility for the kidnapping of our people in Afghanistan. The incident was caused by the US war of aggression and the dispatch of Korean troops to Afghanistan at its request," the letter said.
"We warn that the US will face strong protests from our people if it continues to sit idle or there is additional killing of hostages in Afghanistan." - AFP/ac
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