Taliban, Koreans Negotiate on Hostages

GHAZNI,Afghanistan-Two top Taliban leaders and four South Korean officials met face-to- face Friday in the first negotiations over the fate of 21 members of a church group held hostage for three weeks, Afghan officials said.Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said two members of the top militant council-Mullah Bashir and Mullah Nasorullah-traveled to the central Afghan city of Ghazni, near where the South Koreans were kidnapped on July 19. He said the government in Kabul gave the Taliban a written guarantee that the two officials would be safe.The meeting began Friday evening at the office of the Afghan Red Cross in Ghazni,said Marajudin Pathan, the local governor. An Afghan official who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive information said the two Taliban leaders,four Korean officials and four International Committee of the Red Cross officials participated."We have given them the freedom of secrecy to talk with each other,"Pathan said,confirming that no Afghan officials were taking part in the talks.He said the government had guaranteed the Taliban members' "safety and security."Ahmadi said the Taliban would not kill any of the 21 remaining South Korean hostages until the face-to-face meetings have been held.Two men among the 23 South Koreans originally kidnapped have already been killed.The South Koreans were the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, and their kidnapping underscores the rise of the Taliban's power in rural Afghanistan over last two years.
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As in the days of Noah...