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UPDATED: 14:10, June 25, 2004
Japanese hostages may be used in Fallujah cease-fire talk
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The group that took three Japanese captive last week in Iraq appears to be considering using them as a bargaining tool in the cease-fire talks between US troops and Sunni Muslim insurgents in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Kyodo News reported Tuesday.

Kyodo quoted members of a major Iraqi tribe, who are involved in negotiations with the hostage-takers on the release of the Japanese, as saying that freeing them may become linked to how the talks to settle the conflict in central Iraq progress.

At the same time, there has been no word that the three hostages will be killed soon, the tribesmen was quoted. Their captors had threatened to kill them unless Japan withdraws its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) from Iraq.

The Japanese government has not been able to confirm the safetyor whereabouts of the three as of Tuesday.

The tribesmen's remarks suggest that the hostage crisis, which began last Thursday, could take longer to resolve as talks aimed at gaining their release may rest with how things go along in the negotiations between US troops and the Sunni rebels.

According to Kyodo, the hostage-takers seem to be no longer insisting on the withdrawal of the SDF, and appear to want to use the hostages in the negotiations to stop the US military's attackson insurgents in Fallujah.

The hostages are Noriaki Imai, 18, Soichiro Koriyama, 32, and Nahoko Takato, 34. They are believed to be being held somewhere around Fallujah by an armed group that calls itself Saraya al-Mujahideen (Mujahideen Brigades).

Source: Xinhua

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