PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - A Pakistani tribal leader linked to Al-Qaeda agreed to negotiate over the fate of two Chinese hostages after allowing a deadline for a threatened execution to pass.
Abdullah Mahsud, who is holding the two Chinese engineers in a wild tribal region of Pakistan near the Afghan border, said he had ignored his own 1100 GMT deadline to kill one of the hostages because negotiations were under way.
"The deadline has finished, but as the negotiations have started we are waiting a response from the government," Mahsud told reporters at an undisclosed location.
"The ball is now in the government's court, my fighters are ready and can kill the hostages any time."
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said the hostage-takers had strapped explosives to themselves and the engineers, who were abducted to press Pakistan to release two detained militants.
Mahsud then threatened to kill one of the hostages unless his group were allowed to flee their base, which is surrounded by government security forces backed by members of the Jalakhel tribe, along with their captives.
Chief negotiator Maulana Merajuddin, a local MP and religious leader said he saw the Chinese hostages alive at 5:00 pm (1200 GMT), an hour after the deadline set by Mahsud.
"I have told the abductors not to show haste as it will have serious repercussions for the people of the area," Merajuddin told AFP.
He said the government had agreed to let the militants escape the base in the Jandoola area, 75 kilometers (46.5 miles) from the Afghan border and close to the hydroelectric dam the Chinese engineers were working on, if they left the hostages behind.
Meanwhile, tribal elders decided at a traditional assembly to meet Abdullah Mahsud to press him to release the pair.
"Today a jirga (tribal assembly) of Mahsud tribe decided to meet the militant leader on Tuesday and persuade him to release the Chinese," security commander for Pakistan's tribal areas Brigadier Mahmud Shah told reporters in Tank, some 230 kilometres (144 miles) southwest of Peshawar.
"The tribal leaders will tell Abdullah Mahsud that their action was undermining the peace and security of the area," Shah said.
Mahsud belongs to the fierce Pashtun tribe of the same name which dominates South Waziristan, a remote and harsh tribal district governed only at a distance by Pakistan
The region has become a base for fugitive Al-Qaeda fighters, hundreds of whom poured into the district after their Taliban hosts were driven from power by a US-led invasion. Intelligence officials described Mahsud as an "Al-Qaeda facilitator".
Interior Minister Sherpao said the captors were insisting on one demand only, safe passage for themselves and the hostages.
"They are now insisting on safe passage for themselves and the Chinese engineers," he told reporters in Karachi.
"We are hopeful of the negotiation process but as you are well aware we are dealing with terrorists."
He added: "They are carrying mines and other explosive material on their bodies as well as with those of the Chinese."
Foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan called the incident "very serious".
"We are taking all necessary measures for the release of the Chinese hostages," he told a news briefing.
China, one of Pakistan's oldest and firmest allies, has urged Islamabad to "spare no effort" to rescue the hostages and to step up security for Chinese personnel working on Pakistani projects.