Taliban insurgents have said Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. President George W. Bush, meeting in Camp David on Monday, hold the key to ensuring the 21 remaining Christian Korean hostages currently held by the Taliban are released safely.
The Taliban said that the two presidents must agree to free jailed rebels or be responsible for the deaths of 21 Korean hostages.
The renewed Taliban threat comes as negotiations to free them remained deadlocked with no agreement even on where to hold talks between South Korean diplomats and the kidnappers.
The Taliban have killed two of the hostages and have repeatedly threatened to kill the remaining 18 women and three men unless the Afghan government agrees to free jailed rebels.
"Karzai has gone to America and it is possible he will take a strong decision with Bush to release the Koreans and agree to exchange prisoners because Bush and Karzai are responsible for securing the hostages," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location.
Asked what the Taliban would do if there is no swap, Yousuf said: "The responsibility will lie with Karzai and Bush."
However, Afghanistan has refused to release Taliban prisoners, saying that would encourage a kidnapping "industry".
"We will not do anything that will encourage hostage-taking, that will encourage terrorism," Karzai told CNN.
He added: "But we will do everything else to have them released."
Bush and Karzai are scheduled to focus on the worsening violence in Afghanistan and the threat from militant hideouts in neighboring Pakistan in talks at the U.S. presidential Camp David retreat.
Afghanistan is suffering the worst violence since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
The Taliban campaign of kidnapping, ambush, suicide and roadside bomb attacks is aimed at convincing Afghans that Karzai and his Western backers are unable to provide them security.
