BUCHAREST - Three Romanian journalists held hostage in Iraq are still alive after the expiry of a Tuesday execution deadline and their abductors are ready to negotiate, one of their employers said.
The journalists' kidnappers had threatened to kill them unless Bucharest pledged to withdraw its 860 troops from Iraq by Tuesday afternoon, which Romania has in the past refused to do.
Dan Dumitru, an executive from Prima TV, which employs two of the reporters, said that he had been contacted by a representative of the kidnappers.
"We were contacted three hours ago at the offices of Prima TV by a representative of the hostages who had us listen to a new message from our colleagues," Dumitru said, speaking shortly after 1500 GMT.
Prima TV reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion and cameraman Sorin Miscoci were seized in a Baghdad suburb on March 28 along with Romania Libera correspondent Eduard Ohanesian.
Dumitru said the message contained "a new appeal to the population to rally" to call for the withdrawal of Romanian troops from Iraq.
"Our lives are in your hands," Ohanesian was shown pleading in the video, in an appeal to both the Romanian government and population.
Bucharest had no official reaction to the message.
President Traian Basescu, who vowed following the kidnapping that Romania's troops would serve out their term as part of the US-led forces in Iraq, met with the families of the three hostages on Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier in central Bucharest, several hundred people led by the hostages' families -- journalists, students and Arab community representatives -- had braved the rain to hold a silent rally in support of the journalists.
Trains and buses criss-crossing the city all bore posters showing the three journalists' photographs alongside the caption, "Free them".
Romanian authorities have refused to comment on the hostage crisis to the media, although according to journalists who saw the latest video, negotiations are already taking place between Bucharest and the kidnappers.
On Saturday, the day after the kidnappers' set the Tuesday execution deadline in a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Bucharest said it had transmitted a message to them, but refused to reveal its contents.
Dumitru said he was relieved by the latest message, saying it "proves that the kidnappers want to negotiate and communicate with Romania."
Political analyst Cristian Preda argued that the president's refusal to talk to the media "gave him room to manoeuvre in negotiations with the kidnappers."
Around 200 foreigners have been taken hostage in Iraq since April last year when Shiite and Sunni uprisings shook the country and insurgents and criminals started to use kidnapping as a political tool.
Some hostages have been released, many of them for ransom, while others have been executed.
04/26/2005 17:45 GMT