India has sent a senior diplomat to Baghdad, stepping up efforts to free three of its nationals held hostage in Iraq, and officials said negotiations with the abductors were progressing well.
Talmiz Ahmed, India's Arabic-speaking ambassador to Oman, was sent on Saturday to oversee talks with the abductors and officials of the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company, which employed the hostages, said E. Ahmed, India's junior foreign minister.
The father of one of the hostages told reporters that he had received a telephone call from the Indian prime minister's office saying the government had received "positive" feedback from Iraq.
"The officer told me, `Don't worry. There are positive signs,'" said Ram Murti, whose son, Antaryami, was among seven truck drivers -- three Indians, three Kenyans and an Egyptian -- kidnapped while transporting goods in Iraq.
The kidnappers, who call themselves "The Holders of the Black Banners," have demanded the Kuwaiti transport company stop doing business in Iraq and pay compensation to families of people killed in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. They also want the hostages' countries to withdraw all their citizens from Iraq, and all Iraqis held in Kuwaiti and US prisons to be freed.
The group threatened to kill one hostage every 24 hours starting on Friday, but eased the deadline after Sheikh Hisham-Al-Dulaimi, a tribal leader in Iraq, began mediating.
It was not immediately clear on Saturday whether the kidnappers had set a new deadline. Ahmed did not indicate if he had any information on this.
Meanwhile, residents of Una, the hometown of two of the Indian hostages, vowed to continue blocking a highway passing through the town until the drivers are released.
They have halted traffic on the road for the past three days and have threatened to burn down government offices if the Indians are not released.
About 30 trucks and buses were stranded on the blocked highway. Traffic was being diverted to smaller rural routes, police officer Vimal Gupta said.
On Friday, villagers stopped 37 foreign tourists traveling on two buses, but released them 18 hours later after police intervened.
Una is about 300km northwest of New Delhi. The third Indian hostage is from neighboring Punjab state.
Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company has said it would take "all necessary measures" to save their lives, but didn't say whether it would stop work in Iraq.
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