German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said here on Monday that the government would do everything in its power to secure the release of a second German hostage in Afghanistan who is believed to be still alive.
The Foreign Ministry crisis team is doing its best to try to secure the release of the hostage, the minister said. He added that the body of the dead hostage would be brought back to Germany as soon as possible.
According to Steinmeier, the hostage was apparently not murdered by his kidnappers, as previously claimed by a Taliban spokesman.
The two German nationals and five of their Afghan colleagues, who are civil engineers working on a dam project in Afghanistan, were reportedly abducted Wednesday in Wardak province, about 100 kilometers southwest of Kabul.
A purported Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said earlier Saturday that Taliban fighters had executed two German hostages after the German government failed to meet their demands for the withdrawal of all German soldiers from Afghanistan and the release of captured Taliban militants.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reaffirmed that Germany will not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
Germany currently has about 3,000 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan under the command of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of whom are in the relatively stable northern region.
Source: Xinhua
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