Claims by a purported Taliban spokesperson that two German hostages were shot and killed Saturday have been refuted by both Afghanistan and Germany.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen says one of the kidnapped Germans died of a heart attack, while the other is still alive.
"Everything indicates he was a victim of the stress of the kidnapping," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin.
Baheen said the government is working hard to try and secure the release of the hostages -- civil engineers who were abducted on Wednesday along with five Afghan colleagues in southern Afghanistan.
The seven were kidnapped Wednesday in the southern province of Wardak while working on a dam project.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said Saturday the Germans had been killed because their country had not announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
The German engineers had been working on a dam project in the southern province of Wardak, but little more is known about their identities.
The German government has not acknowledged that the men are in the hands of the Taliban.
"They've confirmed two Germans were abducted on Tuesday, civil engineers, along with five Afghan escorts, about 120 kilometres southwest of Kabul, but they've never confirmed they were in fact the Taliban," Louis Charbonneau, a journalist with Reuters News Service based in Berlin, told Â鶹´«Ã½net.
A report published Saturday in one of Germany's leading newspapers quoted unnamed government officials who said Ahmadi actually had nothing to do with the kidnapping, and his information could be wrong, Charbonneau said.
South Korean hostages
Meanwhile, the threat of death hangs over South Korean visitors to Afghanistan who were abducted two days ago.
Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the Afghan and South Korean governments had until Sunday evening to agree to release 23 Taliban militants or the Korean hostages would be killed.
Ahmadi initially said there were 18 South Korean hostages, but later revised the figure to 23, saying several Koreans spoke Dari and Pashtu and had been mistaken for Afghans.
"If the government of Afghanistan and the government of Korea are asking for the release of their hostages, then we believe the Taliban also have the right to ask for the release of their prisoners who are spending time in Afghan jails," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
Ahmadi had said Friday that the Korean civilians taken by the Taliban would also be killed, unless the Asian country withdraws its 200 troops from Afghanistan by Saturday at noon.
Late Saturday he changed that demand.
Taliban gunmen boarded the busy carrying the South Korean Christians and took them prisoner on Thursday. Fifteen of the 18 passengers on the bus were women.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urged the Taliban to "send our people home quickly and safely."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, himself a South Korean, also called Afghan President Hamid Karzai and expressed "grave concern" over the abductions.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Friday that they were members of Saemmul Community Church in Bundang, near Seoul.
Another report said they were volunteering in a hospital.
A church official has confirmed that 20 of its members were doing volunteer work in Afghanistan and that they have been unable to contact them.
The driver of the bus was released late Thursday. He said there were 18 women and five men on the bus, but there was no explanation of the discrepancy between the numbers provided by the Taliban.
CTV's Denelle Balfour, reporting from Kandahar, said the Koreans were working as volunteers and seem to have the support of the Afghans they were working with.
The Taliban says the deadline for a prisoner exchange ends Sunday night Kandahar time.
Officials have reportedly set up some perimeter checkpoints to ensure the Taliban doesn't escape with the hostages.
South Korea has about 200 troops serving with a U.S. force, in operations separate from the 40,000-member NATO-led force.
The soldiers belong to a peacekeeping force sent to Afghanistan five years ago, mainly for aid and reconstruction work.
A delegation from Seoul is due in Kabul Sunday to meet with Afghan officials in hopes of finding a way to end the impasse.
"Local elders and leaders in the provinces where these events have taken place are working to find solutions to mediate and to try to convince the kidnappers that this is an un-Afghan ... thing to do," Afghan ambassador to Canada Omar Samad told Â鶹´«Ã½net.
There are about 3,000 German soldiers attached to NATO's International Security Assistance Force, stationed in the northern part of Afghanistan. The German foreign ministry estimates there are 500 civilian aid workers in Afghanistan as well.
With files from Associated Press
