The Taliban have not killed the remaining 22 South Korean Christian volunteers held hostage in Afghanistan despite a deadline passing, a Taliban spokesman said on Thursday.

“They are safe and alive,” Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. The Afghan government, he said, “has given us hope for a peaceful settlement of the issue”.

The Taliban had given the Afghan government until 2030 GMT on Wednesday to agree to exchange the group for imprisoned rebels, but the deadline passed without word from the kidnappers until Yousuf spoke on Thursday morning.

S Korean advisor
South Korea despatched its chief presidential national security advisor, Baek Jong-chun, on Thursday to boost coordination with the Afghan government in efforts to secure the hostages’ release.

He was expected to arrive in Afghanistan on Friday, which could mean the Taliban may wait until at least then to see what offer, if any, he brings to negotiations.

General Ali Shah Ahmadzai, provincial police chief of Ghazni province where the 22 remaining hostages are being held and where one was killed on Wednesday, told Reuters the government was keen to resume negotiations with the kidnappers.

He also believed the hostages were safe.

“I was awake all night and if the Taliban had killed any of them I would have known,” he said. “We are trying to contact the Taliban for resumption of talks.”

The fate of the 22 Christian volunteers had hung in the balance overnight, after the rebels killed one hostage and dumped his bullet-ridden body near where the group of 18 women and five men were seized last week.

He was identified as the group's leader, Bae Hyung-kyu, a pastor who would have turned 42 on the day he was murdered.

South Korea condemned Bae’s murder. “The government and the people of South Korea condemn the kidnapping of civilians and the atrocity of harming a human life,” said Baek