Associated Press - The Afghan government has promised safe passage to two Taliban leaders travelling for talks with South Korean negotiators on the fate of 21 hostages, the Taliban said today.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said two members of the group's top council, Mullah Bashir and Mullah Nasorullah, would reach the city of Ghazni "soon" for talks, possibly to be held at the governor's house.

He said the government in Kabul had given the Taliban a written guarantee of the two officials' safety. Mr Ahmadi also said the Taliban would not kill any of the remaining South Korean hostages until the face-to-face meetings had been held.

Two men among the group of 23 South Koreans kidnapped on July 19 have already been killed. The captors have repeatedly threatened to kill more hostages if their demands for the release of Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government and the US military are not met.

The Afghan government has said it will not release prisoners, because doing so could encourage more kidnappings. So far, there has been no sign of a breakthrough in the stand-off. Afghan authorities said talks with the Taliban were the best way to resolve the problem.

The South Koreans were abducted in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province as they travelled by bus from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar.

The captives - volunteers from a church group who planned to do health work in Afghanistan - include 16 women and five men.

The South Korean government has issued guidelines to its aid organisations telling them to leave Afghanistan by the end of the month for safety reasons.

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