Conflicting claims on Korean hostages

“It’s possible that at any moment they will reach Ghazni, it all depends on the transport. As far as we are concerned, they are free … It’s a gesture of good faith to the people of Korea and to the Korean delegation in Afghanistan.”

However, the governor of Ghazni province, where the group of Korean church volunteers were seized on July 20 and are thought to be held, and a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said they had no knowledge of any release.

Earlier, the insurgents had said that the talks with Korean diplomats were going well and the hostages would be freed in a prisoner swap, although a provincial governor was less optimistic.

“We assure you and the whole world that all of the Koreans will be released and will go to their homes,” Mawlavi Nasrullah, one of two Taliban negotiators in the talks, told reporters.

“And our prisoners will come to their homes,” he said in the city of Ghazni, where the Taliban and Korean diplomats have been holding face-to-face talks since late Friday.

Imminent swap?

The governor of Ghazni, who was present during the talks, said he did not know why the Taliban were predicting an imminent swap of hostages for Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government. “I don’t know anything about that. You should ask the Taliban. I don’t know why the Taliban are so sure,” Merajuddin Pattan told Reuters after the talks had finished for the day.