UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday,February 18,1997
7
Warlord releases hostages after two-week standoff
Apology follows presidential visit
The Associated Press
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — A warlord freed his last six hostages yesterday, five of them U.N. workers, ending a two-week standoff in this Central Asian country.
The breakthrough came after Dushanbe President Emomali Rakhmonov ventured into the mountains east of the capital to personally negotiate for the hostages' releases.
The warlord, Bakhram Sadirov, had demanded direct talks with the president. After the meeting, Sadirov released the hostages and apologized for taking 16 captives since Feb. 4.
"I would like to express my apologies to the world community," Sadirov said on Russia's independent NTV television. "We had no other options. Our aim was to get back 40 people."
Sadirov had demanded the government pick up and deliver 40 of his fighters from bases in Afghanistan. Thirty-three were released Saturday.
But one of Sadirov's commanders, Said-Murad Kiyamudnov, said the warlord felt betrayed because the government did not return all 40.
Last Sunday, the government tightened its watch on Sadirov's base and threatened to use force. With the mediation of Russian officials, Sadirov released five of his remaining 11 hostages in return for talks with the president.
The warlord sent two representatives and one hostage, Tajikistan's security minister, to meet Rakhmonov in a village near his base, 50 miles east of Dushanbe.
The last hostages were returned yesterday evening. In addition to the government official, hostages included U.N. military observers from Switzerland and the Ukraine, and U.N. refugee workers from Nigeria, Russia and Tajikistan.
Details of the discussion between the president and Sadirov's representatives were not released.
A representative for the Tajik security ministry in Dushanbe said most of Sadirov's fighters moved deeper into the mountains yesterday in case they should come under attack after the hostages' releases. He spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
Russia has 25,000 troops in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic, to prop up the hard-line government against the mostly Muslim opposition. The troops also guard the country's border with Afghanistan, which Russia sees as a source of drugs, guns and Islamic fundamentalism.
This was Sadirov's second hostage-taking. In December, he seized 23 people, including nine U.N. workers. All were released unharmed.
North Korea appears to relax
Defector remains holed up, guarded in Beijing consulate
BELIJING — Chinese police guarding the South Korean consulate visibly relaxed yesterday, joking and chatting amiably, after North Korea had indicated it could accept the defection of the senior official holed up inside the building.
The Associated Press
But a representative of North Korea's Foreign Ministry indicated
North Korean agents, who had kept a public, round-the-clock vigil outside the consulate since Hwang Jang Yop defected last week, withdrew yesterday. North Korea did not sav why.
the reclusive communist state had decided to accept the defection. Previously, North Korea had threatened to retaliate against South Korea for what it called a kidnapping.
"If he was kidnapped ... we will take decisive countermeasures," North Korea's official news agency quoted the unidentified representative as saying. "If he sought asylum, it means that he is a renegade and he is dismissed."
The representative said North Korea had asked China to investigate Hwang's disappearance.
Kang Ho-yang, a representative of South Korea's Unification Ministry, said the comment indicated that North Korea was abandoning its earlier position in which it had rejected Hwang's defection as inconceivable and impossible.
an unidentified North Korean Foreign Ministry representative
The apparent softening of North Korea's position could ease the way for Hwang to leave the consult, where he has been holed up since asking for asylum there Wednesday.
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