Taliban returns envoys' passports

All attempts by the three envoys to see the international aid workers have failed

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Monday returned the passports and rejected new visas for three Western diplomats in Kabul seeking to see eight foreign aid workers accused of promoting Christianity.

"This afternoon we returned the passports to all three," the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted a Taliban foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

"Tomorrow we will see them off with full protocol," the spokesman said.

After a week of attempting to visit their jailed nationals, Western diplomats Monday prepared to return to Pakistan after making one last appeal for an extension to their visas.

The eight foreign aid workers who were arrested more than two weeks ago for promoting Christianity haven't been seen since their arrests.

"We're clearly not welcome here," said Alastar Adams, first secretary and Consul-General at the Australian High Commission in neighboring Pakistan.

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"My best guess is that they will return our passports with our exit visas already stamped in at about 8 or 9 this evening."

The Taliban have already refused to extend the visas of the American, German and Australian diplomats, but the three men said they will keep asking until they board the United Nations aircraft to return to Islamabad on Tuesday morning.

"It's a real disappointment," David Donahue, Consul-General at the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Pakistan said Monday.

Diplomats loath to leave

The eight aid workers -- two American women, four Germans and two Australians -- were arrested along with 16 Afghan staff of Shelter Now International, run by the German-based Christian organization Vision for Asia.

The two American women were arrested on Aug. 3 and the remainder on Aug. 5 when the Taliban raided the offices of Shelter Now International and confiscated computers, compact discs and Christian material translated into the local languages.

The six women are being held in a single story white cement building on the sprawling grounds of a reform school for delinquent children in the heart of the capital.

It's believed the two men are being held in the Taliban's ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.

The Taliban have identified the eight workers as Americans, Dana Curry and Nicole Barnardhollon; Germans, George Taubmann, Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf; and Australians, Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas.

The diplomats say they are loath to leave Afghanistan.

No comfort for families

The diplomats have spent a week in Afghanistan trying to have the detained aid workers returned to their home countries

For Donahue, who has been in daily contact with the families of the two young American women in jail in Afghanistan, it will mean a little less comfort that he will be able to offer the families in the United States.

"They would like us here. My proximity to their children is very important to them."

"For example when the rockets landed outside the city yesterday (Sunday) I could tell them 'the rockets landed outside of town and I think your daughters are very close to where I am staying in Kabul and it is a very quiet place,"' explained Donahue.

"Now that's something I couldn't say if I were in Islamabad and that's a comfort for the families," he said.

Despite the disappointment of not seeing the detained workers, the diplomats say the one week they spent in the Afghan capital and the many meetings with Taliban foreign officials has been a step in the right direction.

Contact important

"Personal contacts are so much more important and now we have this contact and who knows what else will crop up in the future and it will help us," said Adams.

When the men return to Pakistan their first order of business will be to go to the Taliban's embassy in the Pakistan capital to try to set up a daily monitoring system, explained Donahue.

Donahue expects to be daily visiting the Taliban Embassy in Pakistan for regular updates on the conditions of the jailed aid workers.

"It is important that we hear daily about their condition, because every day a person's condition can change," he said.

The diplomats will also be making daily appeals for another visa to visit Afghanistan and access to their jailed nationals.

Should the eight foreigners go on trial in Afghanistan, the diplomats said they would expect to monitor the court proceedings.

The Taliban say they are broadening their investigations to include other aid groups, including the World Food Program. One Taliban official told The Associated Press that three other international aid organizations would be investigated.

Aid workers in Kabul say more arrests could result in a mass exodus from Afghanistan, a country ravaged by war, a devastating drought and poverty.

Under Taliban law a foreigner can be jailed and expelled for proselytizing. But for Afghans facing similar charges the penalty is death.