South Korean hostages held by Taliban rebels in Afghanistan are in good health, a Taliban spokesman said on Monday.
The Taliban extended on Sunday a deadline for the Korean government to agree to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and the Afghan government to release Taliban prisoners by 24 hours.
"They [the hostages] are in good health and fine, but we would like to repeat that any use of force will claim the lives of the hostages and the Taliban then would not be responsible," said the Taliban spokesman.
While tribal elders tried to mediate between the militants and government negotiators, Afghan forces have surrounded the group of some 70 kidnappers in the Qarabagh area of Ghazni province, south of the capital Kabul.
The 23 hostages belong to the "Saemmul Church" in Bundang, a city outside South Korea's capital, Seoul. Most of them are in their 20s and 30s, and include nurses and English teachers.
In Berlin, chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would not give in to the demands of the kidnappers - who also seized two German engineers and killed at least one of them - to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.