The Taliban agreed on Tuesday to free 19 South Korean church volunteers held hostage since July after the government in Seoul pledged to end all missionary work and keep a promise to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

The Taliban originally seized 23 South Koreans, but have since killed two of the hostages and released two others.

Direct talks between Taliban negotiators and South Korean officials in central Afghanistan led to the agreement to end the hostage crisis.

“I would like to dance,” Cho Myung-ho, mother of 28-year-old hostage Lee Joo-yeon, said in South Korea after hearing news of the impending release. There was no word, though, on when it would take place.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said South Korean and Taliban delegates at face-to-face talks on Tuesday in the central town of Ghazni had “reached an agreement” to free the captives.

South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-sun said the deal had been reached “on the condition that South Korea withdraws troops by the end of year and South Korea suspends missionary work in Afghanistan”, he said.

In reaching the deal, South Korea did not appear to commit to anything it did not already plan to do. Seoul has already said it would withdraw its 200 non-combat troops by the end of the year and has also sought to prevent missionaries from causing trouble in countries where they were not wanted.“We welcome the agreement to release 19 South Koreans,” said Cheon.

The government and relatives of the hostages had insisted that the 19 kidnapped South Koreans were not missionaries, but were doing aid work.