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South Korea Says Taliban Will Free Its Hostages

From those enablers of terrorism at Reuters:


Taliban to free all 19 hostages, South Korea says

By Lee Jin-joo

SEOUL (Reuters) – Taliban insurgents will release 19 South Korean Christian volunteers they have been holding for nearly six weeks in Afghanistan, South Korea’s presidential Blue House said on Tuesday.

But a Taliban spokesman declined to comment on the announcement, saying only that negotiations were successful and the governor of the Afghan province where the hostages were seized said talks were still going on.

“The Taliban agreed to free the 19 South Korean hostages on the condition that South Korea withdraws its troops within this year and halt missionary activities,” the Blue House statement said.

The announcement followed the resumption of negotiations, on hold for two weeks after the Korean side said it was unable to meet the kidnappers’ chief demand to release Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government in exchange for the hostages, most of them women.

The government had in any case decided before the hostage crisis to pull out its small contingent of engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

And since the hostages were taken it has banned its nationals from traveling to the war-torn country…

A South Korean presidential spokesman said it could take some time before the actual release…

But Merajuddin Pattan, governor of Ghazni told Reuters that it was not over yet.

“The talks are still going on. So far the issue has not been resolved. the talks are (going on) face to face.” …

We’ll see.

Though it sounds like the South Korean government is giving the Taliban everything they demanded — and probably more.

In a discreet, face-saving manner, of course.

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This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 8:25 am. You can leave a response.

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