The new French government must pull troops out of Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman said on Monday and offered to extend a deadline over the release of a French hostage. Spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP that the insurgent movement was ready to extend the deadline for its demands to be met for the release of the Terre d’Enfance [A World For Our Children] aid worker if the Afghan and French governments contacted them. “We ask the new French government to secure the national interests of both France and Afghanistan,” Ahmadi said after Nicolas Sarkozy won the French election,” adding, “It must not sacrifice its national interests for the interests and strategies of the Americans. It is also unfair that French and Afghan youth are dying in the fighting.”“Our first demand from the new government of France is that they must present an exact timetable for the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan,” Admadi said. He added that insurgents were also willing to trade the release of Taliban prisoners from Afghan jails for volunteer Eric Damfreville and three Afghan co-workers captured over a month ago.
Ahmadi said on Sunday the deadline had been extended till the new government was in place, which should be around late June. “If anybody either the French or the Afghan government contacts us about the hostages, we are ready to further extend the deadline,” he added. Another Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the group did not yet have an exact date for the deadline. “We will wait for a time period after the election of the president. We expect him to be busy with his government’s internal issues in the beginning but expect him to pay attention to foreign issues promptly,” he said. The spokesmen had previously said that a Taliban council of leaders would decide what to do with hostages if the demands were not met.
“The Taliban’s policy regarding the foreign hostages is clear,” Ahmadi said. While the extremists have beheaded several Afghans many accused of spying their foreign victims have mostly been Turkish and Indian roadworkers and engineers helping to develop southern Afghanistan.