Taliban say SKorean hostage talks must 'speed up'

GHAZNI (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban expressed impatience over talks to free 22 South Koreans it captured 10 days ago but government negotiators ruled out their demand for the release of prisoners.

A senior South Korean envoy meanwhile sought a meeting with President Hamid Karzai over the mostly female Christian aid mission kidnapped in a bus last Thursday as the extremist militia said most of the group was ill.

"Seventeen of the hostages are sick. 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."

The Islamist group has threatened to kill all 22 hostages if its demand for the release of eight Taliban prisoners was not met. It shot dead the leader of the mission this week and dumped his body in the desert.

The group has not set a deadline after a series of others lapsed without incident.

"We have given them (the government) our list and we are waiting for our prisoners to be released," Ahmadi said.

A Taliban commander involved in negotiations, Abdullah Jan, told AFP, "We will accept no other solution but the release our eight prisoners."

But a member of the government negotiating team said the release of prisoners was "out of discussion."

"The government policy is very clear not to release any prisoners," said parliamentarian Mahmood Gailani. "We have not been given the mandate to exchange prisoners," he told AFP.

The government was widely criticised when it released five Taliban prisoners in March to free an Italian hostage and Karzai vowed afterwards the deal would not be repeated.

Gailani said negotiators were exploring options other than a prisoner release to free the group, with an emphasis on releasing the women first.

"In our culture, in our religion women should be respected more. In war we don't take women as hostages and prisoners," said the parliamentarian from Ghazni province, where the group was kidnapped while travelling in a bus.

A South Korean presidential envoy who arrived on Friday was meanwhile seeking an urgent meeting with the president and US-led military forces over the crisis, following a desperate appeal by one of the female hostages for help.

The woman made her an emotional plea this week in a reported telephone interview with US television network CBS, apparently conducted in the presence of her captors.

The hostages were sick and in "very bad condition," she said.
The plea came after the bullet-riddled body of the mission leader, a 42-year-old Presbyterian pastor, was found Wednesday. The rebels said they had killed him because talks with the Afghan government and South Korean officials had stalled.

The aid mission was reportedly in the country to provide free medical services.

The South Koreans were seized while travelling on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar last Thursday 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, as they step up their use of kidnap as a negotiating tool.