A foreign ministry spokesman said in an interview with German television that despite earlier media reports that the two hostages captured by an unidentified Islamist group in central Afghanistan had been executed, the government had yet to receive an independent confirmation.
The two unidentified Germans were abducted at gun point July 18 while traveling in Wardak
province to the southwest of Kabul.
Afghan officials initially said this was a criminal rather than a politically motivated incident as the Germans could have fallen in the hands of drug dealers.
However, Taliban militants later demanded that Germany withdraw its troops serving under NATO in Afghanistan and release all Taliban prisoners held by Kabul in exchange for hostages.
According to several news agencies, including Reuters and Associated Press, a Taliban spokesman announced by phone Saturday that both German hostages were executed after the militants' demands had been ignored.
A day after kidnapping the Germans, the Taliban also seized a group of 23 South Korean citizens in Ghazni province and issued the same ultimatum to the South Korean government.
South Korea maintains a contingent of 200 engineers and medical staff in Afghanistan, while Germany has 3,000 combat troops deployed in the country as part of a NATO peacekeeping force.
The Taliban said they would decide later on Saturday about the fate of the South Koreans.
