Hopes for the safe release of 22 South Korean hostages kidnapped in Afghanistan were kept on tenterhooks Friday, as a Taliban deadline passed without word on their fate or progress in negotiations. Afghan officials remained upbeat about the chances of freeing the hostages without further bloodshed, despite an ultimatum given Thursday from a Taliban spokesman that the captives could be killed if their demands were not met by noon Friday. Previous deadlines given since the South Koreans were seized on July 19 have passed without incident. One of the original 23 captives was shot to death, though the reasons are not clear. «We hope we will have a good result, but I don't know if they will be released today. I don't think they will be,» Shirin Mangal, a spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province where the Koreans were taken, said Friday. A South Korean presidential envoy was due to arrive Friday for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other top officials on the crisis. No breakthrough came in a round of telephone calls late into Thursday night that resumed Friday, officials said. Negotiators were struggling with conflicting demands made by the kidnappers, including the release of Taliban prisoners and ransom money, the Associated Press reported. Calls to a Taliban spokesman after the noon deadline went unanswered Friday. In Seoul, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity, said the captives were still believed to be safe and that officials were trying to get medicine and other items delivered to them. Baek Jong-chun, a senior South Korean official, was expected to meet Karzai and other high-level officials to discuss specific measures to free the hostages, the official said. Local tribal elders and religious clerics who have respect among the people of the Qarabagh district where the Koreans were taken have been conducting negotiations by telephone with the captors for several days. «There are still a lot of problems among them,» Qarabagh police chief Khwaja Mohammad Sidiqi said Friday.
