The Taliban offered to hold talks with South Korean officials in Afghan government-controlled territory over the fate of 21 hostages if the UN guaranteed the safety of the militant delegation.
Friday's offer, made by a purported Taliban spokesman, came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai traveled to the US for weekend talks with US President George W. Bush expected to address the hostage crisis.
South Korea expressed hope on Friday that the summit would help efforts to win the release of the 16 Korean women and five men abducted on July 19 in Ghazni Province. The Taliban have already shot and killed two men in the church group, which was doing voluntary health work in Afghanistan.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a purported spokesman who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the militants were ready to negotiate anywhere for the freedom of the captives with South Korea's ambassador to Afghanistan -- if the UN mission guarantees the militant delegation's safety.
"The Taliban are ready to meet them in Kabul, other cities or other country, but only under one condition and that is that the UN guarantees their safety," Ahmadi said, speaking on telephone from an undisclosed location.
Officials from the UN mission in Afghanistan were not immediately available to comment on Ahmadi's offer.
South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-sun declined to comment on Friday on whether South Korean negotiators planned face-to-face talks with the Taliban, repeating an earlier remark that the country has been "maintaining direct and indirect contacts" with the captors.
"What we want to tell [the kidnappers], the primary goal of these contacts is to make it clear that there is a limit in our government's ability to address the release of prisoners they demand," Cheon told a press briefing in Seoul.
South Korea has sent lawmakers to lobby the US to help resolve the crisis. Seoul has asked Washington and Kabul to exercise "flexibility," as negotiations to free the captives are deadlocked over the Taliban's demand that insurgent prisoners be freed, including some in US custody.
A group of local doctors, meanwhile, traveled from Kabul to Ghazni in a hope of being able to reach the hostages, and treat those in a need of medical care.
However, militants did not allow the doctors to cross into their territory on Friday, telling the group they suspect spies to be among them, said Mohammad Hashim Wahaaj, who is leading the delegation.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS