South Korean envoy seeks direct talks with Taliban captors

GHAZNI, Afghanistan — Officials searched Thursday for a neutral meeting place that would be safe for both South Korean negotiators and Taliban captors to hold face-to-face talks about the release of 21 South Koreans held hostage in Afghanistan.

At an Asian security conference in the Philippines, South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte agreed to place top priority on safely freeing the hostages, ruling out a military option for ending the standoff, a South Korean official said.

But in Washington, senior State Department official Richard Boucher said the United States is not ruling out military force to free the hostages.

A delegation of South Korean lawmakers left for Washington in the latest diplomatic effort to urge the United States to help end the 15-day crisis.

Afghan officials said the Taliban captors have agreed to meet with South Korea's ambassador, but they had not yet agreed on a venue.

"If the Taliban want to come to the area where we are for the sake of these hostages, 100 percent, they will be safe," Ghazni Gov. Marajudin Pathan told a news conference.

But both sides have proposed places that could put them at risk — including the office of the provincial reconstruction team, which is run by international troops.

"The Koreans told the Taliban to come to the PRT, and the Taliban told the Koreans to come to their base," Pathan told The Associated Press after the news conference.

Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the South Koreans had not requested direct talks with the militants, but the insurgents would be willing to hold such a meeting in Taliban-controlled territory.

The Taliban "want to negotiate directly with the Koreans because the Kabul administration is not sincere about releasing the Taliban prisoners," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

A South Korean Embassy official in Kabul would not confirm any Korean efforts to hold face-to-face talks with Taliban.

Ahmadi said the remaining 21 hostages were still alive, but two of the women were very sick and could die from illness.

Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine reported a regional Taliban commander claiming to be the mastermind behind the abductions said the militants might prolong the crisis to embarrass President Hamid Karzai.