South Korea on Sunday said it hoped a meeting between the Afghan and US presidents could break the apparent deadlock in negotiations for the release of 21 aid workers held hostage by the Taliban.

President Hamid Karzai left early on Sunday for two days of meetings with George W Bush to discuss a range of issues — from the US-led “war or terror” being played out in Afghanistan to the country’s booming opium production.

Overshadowing issue

But the Camp David meeting risks being overshadowed by the South Korean hostage drama in which Kabul, apparently backed by Washington, is refusing the Taliban’s demand for the release of jailed militants.

The hardline Islamic militia has murdered two men in the group of church aid workers kidnapped in volatile southern Ghazni province on July 19 and has warned more could be killed.

“We are hopeful of any positive outcome from the meeting,” an official at the South Korean embassy in Kabul said hours after Karzai left for the US with some  senior officials.

S Korea officials

Meanwhile, face-to-face talks between the Taliban and South Korean officials over the fate of 21 hostages will not happen unless the officials travel to Taliban territory or the UN guarantees the militants’ safety elsewhere, a purported spokesman said on Sunday.

The spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the militants had talked to the Korean officials “many times” over the phone the last three days but that there had been “no results”.

“We gave them two choices: either come to Taliban-controlled territory or meet us abroad,” Ahmadi said from an unknown location.

“They accepted these options and told us: ‘We are trying to persuade the UN to give you a guarantee to meet us in another country’.”

“The Koreans also said if the UN did not agree to give the Taliban a guarantee we will come to your areas to meet. They have not done any of the above,” he said.