DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AFP) - Two Chinese engineers were kidnapped in a remote Pakistani tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, officials said.
Police said the engineers were going to a dam project in the troubled area from the neighbouring city of Dera Ismail Khan when they disappeared.
Police officer Habibur Rehman said the Chinese were in one of the five vehicles that left Dera Ismail Khan in the morning for the Gomalzam dam project in South Waziristan.
"The vehicle in which two Chinese were traveling went missing and was later found abandoned by a search party," he said.
"They are surrounded and we are talking to them through intermediaries in order to secure the release of the kidnapped people," Rehman told AFP.
Early Sunday, Chinese embassy spokesman Zhang Yiming told China's official Xinhua news agency that Pakistani forces and the kidnappers ended a four-hour negotiation around 10:00 pm and agreed to entrust a tribal chieftain to guard the three hostages and five kidnappers separately.
Zhang disclosed that the kidnappers had been identified as Afghan immigrants, but their motive in seizing the Chinese was unclear, Xinhua said.
The security forces and the kidnappers had agreed that the forces encircling the kidnappers would retreat hundreds of meters (yards) and neither side would act further in the night, said Zhang.
Under the agreement, the chieftain would hold talks with Pakistani authorities on Sunday morning, Xinhua said.
The two Chinese hostages, Wang Ende and Wang Peng, were in good condition, Xinhua said quoting their boss Kan Janping.
Kan said the engineers were working on the project in the tribal area for China National Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Group Corporation.
The engineers and their security guard were kidnapped Saturday morning, Xinhua said.
The kidnappers were soon surrounded by some 30 security forces when they were heading towards the Afghan border, it said, adding the Pakistani military sent six helicopters to join the rescue efforts.
Later, Malik Mirajuddin, a National Assembly member from the tribal area, began negotiating with the kidnappers, Xinhua said.
The kidnappers asked for a vehicle for safe passage, in return for freeing the hostages but the security forces rejected the request, it said.
Earlier, the abductors were reported to be in a mountain hideout near Jandolla, a rural town 70 kilometers (45 miles) east of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said security forces had cordoned off the area.
"Army and paramilitary troops have been searching areas where we expect the foreign engineers," he told reporters in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Tribal areas security chief Mehmood Shah said foreign elements were behind the kidnapping.
"Two of the kidnappers are foreigners while one is Pushto-speaking local tribesman," he told AFP.
"They have threatened to blow themselves up and kill the captives," if security forces launched a rescue operation, Shah said.
The dam project is located in the rugged region where Pakistani troops have been battling to flush out hundreds of Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
In May this year three Chinese engineers working on a strategic deep-sea port at Gwadar in southwestern Baluchistan province were killed in a car bomb attack.
China and Pakistan are close allies and Islamabad also relies heavily on Beijing for its defense equipment.
In October, Pakistan's military killed China's most wanted "terrorist" Hasan Mahsum, during an anti-terror operation in South Waziristan.
Mahsum was at the top of China's list of so-called terrorists containing the names of 11 Muslim separatists from Xinjiang.