SKorea under fire as hostages taste freedom

GHAZNI: South Korea came under fire for negotiating with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents as 19 Christians released by the hardline movement enjoyed a first taste of freedom Friday in six weeks. 

The final seven hostages were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross in two groups late on Thursday, finally bringing a hostage crisis that had gripped and anguished the nation to a close.   

A dozen others had already been freed on Wednesday, a day after South Korean government negotiators struck a deal with the Taliban.   

"Thank God. They are all freed now," said Je Mi-Sook after her brother Je Chang-Hee was released.   

"My mother is just sobbing, she can't say anything."   

Cha Sung-Min, spokesman for the relatives, said the 19 -- who are expected to arrive home early Sunday -- would be admitted to hospital away from public view for a while to recover from their ordeal.   

Their release has triggered searching questions for the government over the terms of the deal and, for the former hostages, about what they were doing in insurgency-plagued Islamic Afghanistan in the first place.   

According to Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper, South Korea paid two million dollars to the Taliban extremists.   

Citing unidentified sources in Afghanistan, it said that Afghan mediators persuaded South Korea's ambassador in Kabul there was no other way to end the kidnap ordeal.   

"Two million dollars was paid to release all 19 people," an Afghan mediator was quoted as telling the influential Japanese daily.   

The Taliban, who killed two of the original group of 23 seized in southern Afghanistan on July 19 and then freed two women, released the rest after South Korea promised to withdraw its small military presence by the end of the year and ban missionary groups from going there.   

But that was in line with what Seoul had either already planned or ordered, raising questions as to whether there was any other backroom deal.   

South Korean officials have not commented on whether a payment was made to any party to help secure the release.   

Asked about the Asahi report, a presidential spokesman told that there had been no discussions with the Taliban apart from about the troop withdrawal and the missionary issue.   

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said people might think South Korea had handed the hardline Islamic militia a propaganda victory.   

"Regrettably... it can be interpreted in this way," he told Germany's RBB radio.   

He said Seoul had informed Afghan authorities months ago that it planned to withdraw its soldiers.   

"But if the impression is created now that the international community and the Afghan government allow themselves to be blackmailed, then this sends a very dangerous message."   

German politicians also criticised South Korea's handling of the crisis, with Chancellor Angela Merkel indicating Berlin would stand firm in its refusal to negotiate with the militia.   

"In my opinion the fate of the South Korean hostages will change nothing in the way we conduct our efforts" to free a German engineer also being held by the hardline militants, she said.   

There was also criticism from Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier, who said that such negotiations "only lead to further acts of terrorism."   

As for the former hostages, they were "very, very happy and look healthy," Red Cross official Irfan Sulejmani told.   

Picked up in the dark in a remote field, the final three to be freed were driven to the town of Ghazni, in the southern province of the same name, where they were handed over to a South Korean delegation. 

The final releases were like a light at the end of a "very dark tunnel," a South Korean diplomat in Kabul told.   

They would leave Afghanistan as soon as possible, he said on condition of anonymity. "It could take one or two days," he said.