SEOUL, July 24 (UPI) -- South Korea is facing a dilemma over how to ensure the safe release of its citizens taken hostage in Afghanistan after kidnappers have called for direct talks to discuss the fate of the 23 captives in an apparent bid to win bigger concessions.

The Seoul government has vowed not to engage in direct talks with the Taliban kidnappers, whom it says have threatened to claim the lives of innocent people to achieve their political purpose.

But the country is not in position to reject the kidnappers' demand because the lives of the hostages are hanging in the balance with the life-or-death deadline approaching.

South Korea has so far maintained contacts with the Taliban rebels indirectly through the Afghan government and Afghan tribal elders to secure the release and repatriation of the hostages. On Tuesday, however, Seoul officials did not rule out direct dealings with the kidnappers, saying they have various channels of "direct and indirect" communication with the militants.

Seoul officials said they have not yet received any demands for direct negotiations from the Taliban insurgents. The government is mobilizing "effective measures" to resolve the hostage situation in continued negotiations with the kidnappers, officials said.

"For now, we can neither be optimistic nor be pessimistic," a Foreign Ministry official told reporters. He said that the government confirmed the safety of the hostages, including 18 women.

President Roh Moo-hyun also stressed that his government has placed the top priority on winning the safe release of the hostages, indicating South Korea may comply with the kidnappers' demand of direct talks. "The most important goal at this time is to get them back safely," Roh told a Cabinet meeting, while calling for a "calm and cool-headed attitude" in dealing with the hostage issue.

A crisis team led by Vice Foreign Minister Cho Jung-pyo dispatched to Kabul to spearhead efforts to save the hostages could serve as a channel for direct communications with the kidnappers.

The South Korean hostages, mostly nurses doing volunteer work in Afghanistan, were seized Thursday at gunpoint while traveling by bus from Kabul to Kandahar. They belong to a Presbyterian church south of Seoul, but church officials denied the hostages were an evangelical mission, saying they were purely for humanitarian services, such as medical and education assistance in the war-torn country.

The Taliban kidnappers initially called for all South Korean troops to leave Afghanistan, setting the midnight deadline (Korean time) to start killing the hostages. Some 200 South Korean troops are stationed in the war-ravaged Central Asian nation for humanitarian and rehabilitation operations as part of international coalition forces led by the United States and NATO.

As South Korea quickly moved to address the demand, saying it had planned to withdraw its troops by year's end and already has begun preparations to implement the pullout, the kidnappers came up with a new demand of the release of an equal number of Taliban prisoners in exchange for the release of the 23 South Korean hostages, extending the deadline. The Taliban kidnappers have also reportedly demanded $100,000 from the South Korean government in return for direct phone contact with the hostages.

Officials and analysts here expect the kidnapers to probably make an additional demand for a huge ransom, which could drag out negotiations.

Chung Sang-ryool, a Middle East expert at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, said the kidnappers' demand for direct talks with South Korea appeared aimed at driving a wedge in the U.S.-led alliance in Afghanistan. "The Taliban would seek to press South Korea to persuade the U.S. and Afghan governments to release Taliban prisoners," he said.

The Taliban insurgents have campaigned to expel the Western-backed Afghan government and force out foreign troops after they were ousted by the United States for sheltering al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The Taliban demand of direct talks would pose a huge dilemma on South Korea, Chung and other analysts said. It is tough for Seoul to get Washington and the U.S.-backed Afghan government to set free Taliban prisoners because the United States has long vowed not to give in to demands by terrorists, they said.