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Two Korean hostages will be released Monday as a “goodwill gesture” towards the Korean people and officials, said a purported Taliban spokesman.
“We are releasing two sick Korean hostages at 4 o’clock (7:30 a.m. EDT) today,” said Yousuf Ahmadi by telephone from an undisclosed location, according to Reuters. “We are going to hand them over between Ghazni and Zabul provinces to the Red Cross.”
If the handover takes places, the pair of Koreans will be the first hostages released since the Taliban abducted 23 South Korean Christian volunteers on July 19. The Taliban has killed two male hostages since holding the Koreans captive.
However, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it has not received a formal request to be the mediator in the handover although it does have contacts with the Taliban, according to Reuters.
Korean officials and Taliban leaders have held face-to-face talks on the release of the hostages for four days at the Afghan Red Crescent office, which is associated with ICRC, in the Ghazni province.
Yet officials are hesitant to believe the spokesman because he has said late Saturday that the two female Korean hostages were already freed. He later corrected himself and said he had misinterpreted and that the two would be freed soon.
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“I’ll confirm the release of the Koreans when I see them with my own eyes,” said local governor Merajuddin Pattan to Reuters.
The rebels are still demanding a prisoner-hostage exchange for the remaining 19 Koreans after the two ill Korean women are released. Yet both Kabul and Washington have remained adamant about not giving into terrorism and stated that the release of Taliban prisoners is not an option.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was criticized by the United States and other Western countries earlier this year for giving into terrorism after he released five Taliban prisoners in exchange for an Italian reporter in March. He had vowed that the exchange would be a one-time deal.
Current South Korea-Taliban talks appear to be one of the last hopes with the U.S.-Afghan governments taking a hard-line stance against a prisoner swap.
South Korea, notably, has remained quiet on details regarding negotiations.
“Until they come, we cannot say anything,” a spokesman said on condition of anonymity, according to Agence France-Presse.
“We are still waiting. The one thing clear is that our negotiating team has maintained a good channel with the Taliban,” he said.
Twenty-three South Korean volunteers were abducted nearly a month ago in insurgency-plagued Ghazni province. Out of the aid group, 16 are females, according to AFP. The church group was on its way to provide free medical services to poor Afghan citizens when their bus was hijacked.
Since their kidnapping, two male hostages have been killed. The leader of the aid group, Bae Hyung-kyu, was the first victim, found dead July 25 with 10 bullet holes in his body. The body of the second victim, 29-year-old Shim Sung-min, was found July 30.
The kidnapping of the 23 Korean Christians was the largest abduction of foreigners in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
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