By Yoon Won-sup with Emal Pashtunyar in Kabul
Staff Reporter
Korean aid organizations will leave Afghanistan within a month as part of their efforts to help free 21 hostages held by Taliban militants, according to a report.
Korean Ambassador Kang Sung-zu told Pashtun tribal leaders from Nangarhar Province that Korea will not let any more of its citizens or aid organizations enter Afghanistan and aid organizations that are currently in the country would leave within a month, Afghan TV station Tolo reported.
Kang added that the organizations might return to Afghanistan some day after the release of the hostages with security guarantees by the Afghan government.
Meanwhile, a Korean delegation continued seeking face-to-face negotiations with the Taliban. They are discussing a venue and an agenda for direct talks.
``All related parties are making very active contact to realize direct negotiations,'' presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon told reporters.
AP reported that the governor of Ghazni Province, Marajudin Pathan, expects a location to be agreed upon within the next two days.
The militants have repeatedly demanded that the Afghan government release imprisoned Taliban fighters in return for the release of the hostages. The insurgents have already killed two male hostages.
However, the Afghan has government made it clear that it will not make any deal with them.
``It is the government's policy not to enter into any deal with terrorists,'' Interior Ministry spokesman Zmaray Bashari told reporters at a press conference, Wednesday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. President George W. Bush also denied any concessions to the Taliban during their meeting early this week at Bush's retreat Camp David.
The spokesman said special forces are ready to conduct a military operation to rescue the hostages but they are waiting for the approval from the Afghan government. But he added that the Korean government opposes any military operation.
The ministry's rejection of any deal with the Taliban came on the eve of a regional peace Jirga (meeting) of more than 700 Pakistani and Afghan tribal elders.
Though the hostage issue is not on the main agenda, it is generally believed that participants of the four-day meeting will ask the Taliban to free the captives, mostly women.
However, the Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi said the militants will not follow any instruction from the tribal elders.
Meanwhile, some indirect contacts by phone between the Korean delegation and the Taliban continued according to sources in Ghazni where the Taliban kidnapped the Koreans on July 19.
The source said there had been a chance to arrange face-to-face talks between the two sides but this failed to come to pass.
The remaining Korean captives are 18 women and three men, mostly in their 20s and 30s who went to Afghanistan July 13 to offer volunteer services.
yoonwonsup@koreatimes.co.kr
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