KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's Taliban rulers will allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to meet eight foreign aid workers accused of spreading Christianity, Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said on Thursday.
"We have no problem. They (ICRC representatives) can see them any time," Muttawakil told Reuters by telephone from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. He said the Taliban had not informed the ICRC of the decision yet and gave no other details.
It was not clear when such a meeting could take place, and ICRC officials in Pakistan said they had not been informed of any developments by the Taliban. The ICRC has offered from the start to visit the prisoners.
The foreigners -- two Australians, four Germans and two Americans -- together with 16 Afghan employees of a Christian aid agency, have been held since early August.
The Taliban have consistently refused to allow any contact, either consular or legal, with the aid workers of German-based Shelter Now International.
Muttawakil's statement appeared to add to the confusion surrounding their detention.
Mohammad Wali, the minister in charge of the religious police that carried out the arrests, told Reuters after Muttawakil spoke that he was unaware of any decision to allow a visit to the Western prisoners.
The Taliban's chief spokesman, Abdul Hai Mutmaen, had repeated on Wednesday there would be no access to the prisoners by anyone until a Taliban investigation into the charges was completed.
"Our stance regarding the visit has not changed, which is that until the investigation is completed, no one will be allowed to see the detainees," Mutmaen told Reuters from Kandahar.
DIPLOMATS SEEK VISAS
In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said a visit by the ICRC would be welcome but would not be a substitute for a visit by a U.S. consular official.
In the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, diplomats from Australia, Germany and the United States applied at the Taliban Embassy for fresh visas to visit Afghanistan. They had returned empty-handed on Tuesday after spending a frustrating week in Kabul.
A Taliban Embassy spokesman told Reuters that visa applications from the three diplomats and two other Americans -- the mother of one detained American and the father of another -- would be forwarded to the Foreign Ministry in Kabul later on Thursday.
The two American parents spent more than an hour at the Taliban Embassy on Thursday seeking information about their children, the embassy said. They have avoided all contact with the media.
The Taliban say a large haul of Christian material was seized from the arrested foreigners, showing they were propagating Christianity in Afghanistan.
Shelter Now says its staff are told not to proselytize.
The arrests followed months of worsening relations between the Taliban, who are determined to impose their harsh version of Islam on Afghanistan, and foreign aid organizations helping Afghans suffering from 21 years of war and a devastating drought.
The United Nations has warned the Taliban they are violating international norms by refusing to let the detainees see representatives of their governments or lawyers.
Seeking converts or converting people from Islam can carry the death penalty in Afghanistan.
16:54 08-23-01
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