GHAZNI, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's extremist Taliban said Tuesday they would free 19 kidnapped South Korean aid workers within days, raising hopes for an end to the near six-week hostage crisis.
The militia agreed a deal with South Korean diplomats after Seoul pledged to remove its small military force from Afghanistan by the end of the year as planned and prevent Christian missionary groups from visiting the country.
"We're going to do our utmost to free them as soon as possible," said Taliban negotiator Qari Mohammad Bashir, adding that the hostages would likely be released in the three to four days.
Bashir said it would take time to gather the hostages as they were being held in different locations. The Taliban has previously said the captives were split up into small groups and held in three provinces.
The agreement was reached in talks between Taliban leaders and South Korean officials in Ghazni, 140 kilometres (90 miles) south of Kabul. Indonesian diplomats and tribal negotiators also played a role.
The news was greeted with scenes of joy in South Korea where the crisis has gripped the nation ever since a group of 23 aid workers was kidnapped while travelling by bus from the capital Kabul to Kandahar on July 19.
"The good news has arrived and the whole nation is now relieved," South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun was quoted by his spokesman as saying.
Family members shed tears and embraced one another as they gathered at a church south of Seoul where a vigil has been maintained throughout the 41-day ordeal. They have experienced shifting emotions as the Taliban killed two of the male hostages and then released two women on August 13.
Their spokesman Cha Sung-Min, almost overcome with emotion at a press conference, expressed sorrow the news could not be shared with the two dead male hostages.
"We feel very sorry for causing so much concern to the people. It is very regrettable that we cannot share this good news with the relatives of the late Pastor Bae Hyung-Kyu and brother Shim Sung-Min," he said.
The previous round of talks ended in deadlock just under two weeks ago, with the Taliban sticking to a demand that some of its men be freed from jail.
But the Afghan government has steadfastly refused to release any prisoners.
The government was criticised in March after it released five Taliban militants in exchange for an Italian journalist but declined to release another prisoner to secure the freedom of his Afghan translator who was later beheaded.
Taliban negotiator Bashir said the militia also wanted all South Korean aid workers to leave Afghanistan by the end of the month, but this demand was not confirmed by other sources.
He said Taliban forces had also agreed not to attack South Korean troops before they leave. Seoul had said it would pull out the troops, mostly engineers and medics, as scheduled by the end of the year.
The South Korean government has already passed a legal amendment making unauthorised travel to Afghanistan punishable by a jail term, and told all Christian and other aid groups to come home from the war-torn nation.
The Taliban, linked to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda movement, are also holding a German engineer who was kidnapped a day before the South Koreans.
The group has said it wanted 10 jailed Taliban to be freed in exchange for the engineer, who is also said to be sick, and his four Afghan colleagues.
The kidnappings are among a series of incidents blamed on the Taliban, who are waging a bloody insurgency against the Kabul government and its coalition allies that has spiralled in intensity over the past year.
A female German aid worker was kidnapped in broad daylight in the capital earlier this month, but she was later freed in a police raid and authorities said her abduction was a criminal act motivated by money.
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CNA
