LAST 7 S. KOREAN MISSIONARIES RELEASED!!!!
CBC NEWS
All seven remaining South Korean hostages were freed Thursday by their Taliban captors as part of a deal that has been criticized by both Afghan and Canadian officials.
Two men and two women were handed over to officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross on a road in the Ghazni province of central Afghanistan, and later in the day, three female hostages were released.
"They are very happy at the moment," Irfan Sulejmani, a Red Cross official, said as he drove the last three released women to Ghazni city.
"They are holding each other's hands. They are very relieved."
Sulejmani, speaking to CBC News by cellphone, said all seven hostages, travelling in a convoy of trucks, will be reunited with Korean officials in Ghazni city. As the convoys were travelling to the city, the hostages were waving to each other out the windows of their trucks, he said.
The hostages were among 23 South Korean Christian aid workers seized by Taliban militants as they travelled by bus from Kabul to Kandahar on July 19. In late July, the militants shot and killed two male hostages, but in mid-August, they released two female hostages.
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On Wednesday, 12 of the remaining 19 hostages were freed, and militants promised that the last seven would be freed soon after.
The decision to free all 19 remaining hostages followed a deal struck Tuesday between South Korean officials and Taliban representatives in which Seoul reaffirmed its pledge to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and to suspend South Korean Christian missionary work there.
No money was involved in the deal, both sides say.
The militants had originally demanded the Afghan government and the U.S. military release Taliban prisoners in exchange for the hostages' safe return, but the militants backed off that demand in their negotiations.
'We do not negotiate with terrorists': Bernier
Critics, including Canada, say Seoul might have set a dangerous precedent in directly negotiating with the Taliban.
Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier expressed regret over South Korea's handling of the crisis.
"We do not negotiate with terrorists, for any reason," said a statement from Bernier's office.
"Such negotiations, even if unsuccessful, only lead to further acts of terrorism."
Afghan Commerce Minister Amin Farhang also warned that the deal would embolden the insurgents.
"One has to say that this release under these conditions will make our difficulties in Afghanistan even bigger," Farhang told Germany's Bayerischer Rundfunk radio.
"We fear that this decision could become a precedent. The Taliban will continue trying to take hostages to attain their aims in Afghanistan."
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/08/30/hostages-korea.html]Original Link - CBC News