Japan says hostage negotiations with Islamic State are ‘deadlocked’
No progress in Japan and Jordan's efforts to secure release of hostages held by Islamists in exchange for female suicide bomber on death row in Amman
Japan’s vice-foreign minister has said negotiations with Islamic State, which is threatening to execute a Jordanian pilot and a Japanese journalist, have become “deadlocked,” local media reported on Saturday.
Yasuhide Nakayama, who is leading Tokyo’s emergency response team in Amman, told reporters in the Jordanian capital late on Friday that there had been no progress in trying to secure the release of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto and airman Maaz al-Kassasbeh.
“It has become deadlocked,” he said, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. “Staying vigilant, we will continue analysing and examining information as the government is making concerted efforts together.”
In Tokyo, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko, a key aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said on Saturday morning the government was still waiting for new information on the hostage crisis.
IS had vowed to kill Kassasbeh by sunset on Thursday unless Amman handed over an Iraqi female jihadist in return for Goto.
Jordan has demanded evidence that the pilot, who crashed in Syria on December 24, is still alive before freeing would-be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi, who is on death row.
Jordan has offered to free Rishawi, who was convicted for her part in triple-hotel bombings in Amman in 2005 that killed 60 people, if IS releases the pilot.