Korean negotiators accompanied by Afghan elders and clerics met face-to-face with the kidnappers of 23 South Koreans yesterday as a threatened Taliban deadline to execute them passed by once again.

Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said late yesterday negotiations were in the "final stage," but he provided no other details.

The Korean negotiators met the kidnappers somewhere in Ghazni province, said a provincial official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation. The official said the militants were now demanding monetary payment for the release of the hostages.

Previously, Yousef said the militants wanted 23 Taliban prisoners released in exchange for the lives of the hostages.

The South Korean hostages, including 18 women, were kidnapped on Thursday while riding a bus through Ghazni province on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, Afghanistan's main thoroughfare.

South Korea's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said it asked the Afghan military to refrain from conducting operations near the location where the hostages were believed to be held, out of concern the kidnappers could be provoked.

Villagers in Ghazni held a rally demanding the hostages be released, said Mohammad Zaman, the deputy provincial police chief. Some carried banners and shouted slogans calling for the Koreans to be freed, he said. A television reporter saw 100 to 150 villagers demonstrating.

"We want the Taliban to release them, because they are guests," Zaman said. "They are in Afghanistan and we want them to be safe."

The South Korean church that the abductees attend has said its members were involved in medical and volunteer aid - not Christian missionary work.

South Korea has about 200 troops serving with the 8,000-strong US-led coalition in Afghanistan, largely working on humanitarian projects. They are scheduled to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2007.

Most of the Koreans are in their 20s and 30s, and include nurses and English teachers. It is the largest abduction of foreigners in the Taliban campaign to oust the Afghan government and eject foreign troops.

(China Daily via agencies July 25, 2007)