GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) -- Taleban and South Korean negotiators Saturday resumed direct talks over 21 hostages held for more than three weeks after pausing overnight with no apparent breakthrough.

The talks restarted at around 8:45 am (0415 GMT) after pushing late into the night, Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP.
The negotiations are seen as one of the last ways to save the hostages -- all aid workers from a South Korean church -- kidnapped July 19.
The hardliners have already shot dead two men in the group, which includes 18 women, and threatened to kill more if their demand for the release of some of their men from jail is not met.
Ghazni provincial governor Mirajhuddin Pattan confirmed the talks had resumed Saturday in the small town of Ghazni, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) south of Kabul.
The 23 South Korean missionaries were abducted in Ghazni province while traveling on a key highway which many foreigners consider a no-go area amid a decline in security in Afghanistan because of the Taleban threat.
""The talks between a Taleban team and the South Korean delegation are under way in the office of the Afghan Red Crescent,"" Pattan told AFP. The two-storey building is in the center of the town.
Officials said Friday the Afghan government was securing the talks, which had been delayed for days as both sides sought a venue in which they would be safe.
The South Korean embassy in Kabul said Saturday it could not comment.
In Seoul, the presidential Blue House confirmed to journalists that the first face-to-face talks with the insurgents were held late Friday.
""For the safety of the hostages, no details of the talks can be released for now,"" spokesman Cheon Ho-Seon said.
The Taleban team consists of two men and it is not clear how many people are in the South Korean delegation.
Ahmadi told AFP Saturday the negotiating team was sticking to the Taleban demands that eight of their men be released from jail in exchange for the hostages.
He added however that ""maybe"" something would change in the course of the talks but gave no details.
Kabul, backed by Washington, has steadfastly refused to agree to the Taleban demand for the release of jailed militants, and Seoul says it is powerless to bring about a prisoner release.
Afghan government negotiator Mahmood Gailani said last week that any negotiations for the release of the Korean aid workers could only be about money.
President Hamid Karzai's administration came under heavy criticism, notably from Washington, when it freed five important Taliban fighters in exchange for an Italian journalist, whose two Afghan colleagues were beheaded.
Seoul has appealed to Afghanistan to do what it can but has said it understood the government's difficulties in its fight against the Taleban who are allied with the Al-Qaeda network.
The Taleban are also linked to a militant group holding a German engineer and four Afghans captured in Wardak province near Kabul the day before the South Koreans' abduction.
The militants have demanded a prisoner exchange for the 62-year-old engineer, who was captured with another German who was shot dead days later