The Taliban has extended the deadline for executing 23 South Korean hostages for another 24 hours, a purported Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said Sunday.

The Taliban has threatened to kill all the hostages if Afghan authorities failed to release 23 Taliban prisoners before 7:00 PM (1430 GMT) on Sunday.

Immediately after the deadline expired, Ahmadi said the Taliban would extend the deadline for another 24 hours as the South Korean government makes positive contact with the hostages.

Taliban militants kidnapped the 23 South Koreans on a road in the central Ghazni Province on Thursday afternoon.

On Sunday, Afghan and the U.S.-led coalition forces cordoned off a suspected Taliban hideout in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni in order to secure the release of the hostages.

But the Taliban spokesman announced that all the 23 hostages would be executed if the troops rashly raided the hideout.

A South Korean team led by a vice foreign minister arrived in Kabul on Sunday to facilitate the release of the hostages.

The Taliban also demanded the withdrawal of 200 South Korean troops from Afghanistan but the South Korean government reported that the soldiers would be pulled out at the end of 2007 as scheduled.

Taliban militants have frequently carried out kidnappings in Afghanistan over the past two years. The Taliban has killed some hostages in the past.

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2007)