taliban Losing Patience Warn Taliban
By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter
The Taliban militants holding 19 Korean hostages said they are losing patience with Korean negotiators, according to reports.
The kidnappers accused the Koreans of not doing enough to persuade the Afghan government to accept their demands to release Taliban fighters imprisoned in Afghanistan.
The Korean nation must understand that if their hostages are harmed their government will be responsible, because it doesn't do much to gain their release," the purported Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP. ``Their efforts are not sufficient.''
However, the insurgents didn't set a deadline yet. Earlier, they threatened to kill the remaining hostages unless the Afghan government free the Taliban prisoners.
Meanwhile, the Taliban's demand is not likely to be met as Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly refused to accept it under the U.S. and other western nations' opposition. Karzai said that concession to the kidnappers' demand will encourage more abductions.
The face-to-face negotiations between the Korean delegation and the Taliban haven't made any progress since the Taliban released two female hostages on Aug. 13.
The first round of talks between the two sides began on Aug. 10. The three days of talks resulted in the release of the two female captives, who the militants had said were seriously ill earlier.
Soon after the release of the two hostages, the talks were suspended. They were resumed after a day, but again suspended after the two sides met only for a few hours at the office used by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Since then, mixed signals have been coming out from Ghazni Province, which has become a focal point for both local and international media in Kabul since July 19, the day the Taliban kidnapped 23 Koreans.
Earlier, some insiders had confided that the Taliban leadership was not happy over the kidnapping of the Koreans, especially the women, and want a speedy settlement of the issue. They believed that the Taliban stress on face-to-face talks with the Korean side was meant to achieve a quick end to the crisis.
All that was preventing a peaceful end to the crisis was a ransom amount, according to a source in Kabul. The Taliban are demanding $500,000 for each captive, while the Korean side was offering that sum for the release of all 19 hostages.
The militants killed two male hostages, and the remaining 19 captives are mostly in their 20s and 30s, who went to Afghanistan to offer volunteer medical services.