The Taliban militants have asked South Korea to pay $100,000 in return for direct contact with its 23 hostages, said the Afghan officials who are intervening in the negotiations between the Islamic revels and the Korean government Tuesday.
Khwaja Mohammad Sidiqi, the local police chief and one of the Afghan negotiating team members, said the Taliban have suggested $100,000 in return for direct calls to the South Korean captives in today’s contact, according to Kyodo News Service.
He also explained that the Taliban have also asked for same money they demand for direct contacts if the Korean delegation wants to see how they look recently in photos, the agency said.
The revels have called for the release of the same number of Taliban prisoners in return for freeing the 23 South Korean hostages as a term make freed the hostages detained by the militants.
The Taliban militants once again extended the deadline they had set to kill their abductees for the second time by 24 hours till 7 p.m. in local time (11:30 p.m. in Korean Standard Time), Tuesday.
Meanwhile, they said that a German hostage they have held for nearly a week
was very sick and drifting in and out of consciousness, the AFP said.
"The German is very badly sick. He has got diabetes," AFP quoted Taliban spokesman
Yousuf Ahmadi as telling by telephone from an unknown location. It was impossible
to verify the claim independently.
"Most of the time he's unconscious and we have to carry him on a stretcher
from one place to another," Ahmadi was quoted as saying.
The Taliban have previously demanded the freedom of 10 of their jailed
comrades in return for the release of the German citizen and have threatened to
kill him otherwise.
They have also demanded that Germany pulls troops from Afghanistan.
The body of a second German kidnapped at the same time was found dumped on
a road on Sunday. The cause of death is not yet clear.
Ahmadi said a deadline for the sick German hostage had yet to be decided by
Taliban commanders.