UK will 'talk' to kidnappers

2004-09-29 22:24

Baghdad - The British embassy is willing to have a "dialogue" with the abductors of hostage Kenneth Bigley, a British diplomat in Bagdhad told AFP late on Wednesday.

The embassy is ready to have "communications" with Bigley's kidnappers, but so far they have not made any contact, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat insisted contact between the sides did not amount to any form of negotiation.

Both Britain and the United States have vowed to stand tough with kidnappers.

The diplomat was speaking after the 62-year-old hostage was shown on Al-Jazeera Arabic satellite television pleading for his life, while shackled and weeping inside a cage.

The diplomat stressed the British did not have any female prisoners in Iraq after the video showed Bigley, wearing orange overalls, huddled in a cage and in chains begged British Prime Minister Tony Blair to free all female detainees in Iraq.

The beleaguered hostage said his "kidnappers do not want to kill him".

Bigley was seized on September 16 at his Baghdad home along with two US colleagues.

The Americans were later beheaded by the Unity and Holy War group, the organisation of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the suspected brains behind a wave of assassinations and bombings in Iraq.

A statement posted on Tuesday night on an Arabic-language website said Bigley was to be freed imminently, but warned other people would be kidnapped and beheaded if foreign forces failed to withdraw from Iraq.

- AFP