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No More Talks on Korean Hostages - Taliban Spokesman

Taliban rebels on Sunday ruled out more talks with the Afghan government over their remaining 22 South Korean hostages and said the release of militant prisoners was the only way out of the crisis.

Posted: Sunday, July 29, 2007, 12:13 (BST)
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Ghazni's governor, Mirajuddin Pathan, said medicines the Korean government had wanted to send for them could not be delivered because the Afghan team could not establish contact with the Taliban.

Pathan said the government did not want to use force to rescue the hostages.

"We have no plan of attack. We are trying to send the delegation for more talks," he told Reuters.

In addition to Afghan forces, foreign troops are also stationed in Ghazni.

"I really wish that the negotiations will go well and that she would hurry and return to our family. There is nothing else," said Yoo Jung-hee, a sister of one of the female hostages, at Saemmul Church near Seoul which sent the Koreans to Afghanistan.

"I know that the government is trying hard but I just miss my sister," she said. "Of course I miss her. I just want to see her. That is all, I just want to see her face."

A South Korean special envoy held talks with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday and spoke about the efforts to try to speed up the hostages' release, Afghan officials said, but refused to elaborate further.

After coming under harsh criticism for freeing five Taliban prisoners in exchange for the release of an Italian hostage in March, Karzai ruled out any deal with the Taliban.

The president and his ministers have remained tightlipped over the crisis.

The Taliban are still holding one German and four of his Afghan colleagues who were abducted from a neighbouring province a day before the Koreans. Another German seized alongside them was later found dead with gunshot wounds.

The abduction of the Koreans is the largest kidnapping of foreigners by the Taliban since US-led and Afghan forces overthrew the movement's radical Islamic government in 2001.

It comes amid an increase of violence in the past 18 months, the bloodiest period since Taliban's removal.



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