Taliban agree to free S Korean hostages

SEOUL: Taliban have agreed to release 19 South Korean Christian aid workers held hostage for nearly six weeks, the Korean presidential office announced.

"The agreement was reached on conditions that South Korea withdraw its troops stationed in Afghanistan by the year's end and impose a ban on missionary activities" by its Christian groups, presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-Seon said.

"The South Korean government welcomes the agreement on the hostage release," he added.

The hostages will be freed in three or four days," Muhammad Zahir, a trial chief who has been a key negotiator with the Taliban, informed.

In Afghanistan, Taliban representatives said that the Korean hostages would be freed "soon" after a successful round of negotiations.

"Both sides agreed that South Korean military forces and their missionary groups would leave Afghanistan and the Taliban would free the hostages very soon," said a Taliban representative, who asked to remain anonymous.

Separately, Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the negotiations between the Islamist movement and South Korean officials had been successful.

Sixteen women and seven men from a Seoul church were seized on July 19 while on an aid mission in insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan.

The Taliban killed two of the men to press their demands for the release of jailed insurgents, a demand rejected by the Kabul government.