Karzai offers peace, Taliban free Frenchwoman

France's Foreign Ministry confirmed that one member of an aid group who had been kidnapped in Afghanistan early this month had been released.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said earlier the aid worker was a French woman, identified only as Celine, and she was freed in the southern province of Kandahar as a gesture of goodwill.

Speaking to Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location, he said the deadline for the release of her male French colleague, Eric, and three Afghan workers for the Terre d'Enfance aid group had been extended by a week.

"This release is the result of the efforts made for more than three weeks. They must continue with the same determination and the same discretion until the release of the other hostages," France's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Taliban want France to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and the release of Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government before freeing the Frenchman and his three Afghan colleagues, Yousuf said.

Yousuf, asked if a ransom had been paid, said the aid worker had been freed "because she is a woman."

At a colorful ceremony in Kabul for the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet-backed communist regime, Karzai again pleaded with the Taliban to talk peace.

"Today, while celebrating the jihad victory, we once again invite those who have sided with aliens because of seduction against their nation, to give up sedition and evil and join peaceful life," he said.

The ceremony was marked by a military parade that included disabled victims of Afghanistan's fighting -- in wheelchairs and on crutches -- as well as a display of Soviet-era tanks, modern American Humvees and camels.

Among the parade were two old British cannons, captured during a bloody British incursion in the 19th century.

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