TOKYO: A Japanese journalist believed to have been kidnapped by the Afghan Taliban has been released after five months, a report said on Sunday.
Kosuke Tsuneoka, a freelance journalist who had been missing in northern Afghanistan since April, is now under protection at the Japanese embassy in Kabul, the Jiji Press agency said, quoting diplomatic sources.
A foreign ministry official in Tokyo declined to comment.
Members of the group holding Tsuneoka reportedly asked the Japanese government to negotiate the release of their imprisoned comrades, while Taliban insurgents also demanded the Afghan government pay a ransom for the journalist.
Japanese media reported that negotiations were underway on a payment of several hundred thousand dollars for Tsuneoka’s release.
Criminal groups and Taliban insurgents have kidnapped several dozen foreigners, many of them journalists, since the 2001 US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul and sparked the current insurgency.
In his last Twitter posting on March 31, Tsuneoka said he had gone into a Taliban-controlled area in the country’s north.
He had previously covered conflicts in Chechnya and Iraq.
