Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirajuda said that the Indonesian government has paid no ransom for releasing its 14 citizens who were taken hostages by an armed group in Somalia since Aug. 15, 2005.

"We paid nothing because our ambassador in Nairobi had made a political approach," Antara news agency quoted the minister as saying here on Saturday.

The 14 just released Indonesians are among 48 workers of three Taiwanese fishing boats, which were pirated in Somali territorial waters.

The minister said the government had contacted employers of the workers. "It was their employers who take the back-line efforts."

At the political level, he said, he had talked with his Somali counterpart during the UN general assembly in New York recently.

The minister advised the workers to be careful and avoid uninhabited regions because Somali territorial waters are one of alarming regions for piracy.

The Indonesian workers were taken hostages near Kismayo Port in South Somalia along with their 14 Chinese counterparts, 12 Filipinos, four Vietnamese and three boat captains from China's Taiwan.

Previously, the armed group demanded a ransom of 1.5 million U. S. dollars for the three boats and all crew members, or 500,000 U. S. dollars for each boat.

Source: Xinhua