A Korean representative talks with media along with Taliban representative Qari Bashir at the Afghan Red Crescent Society of Ghazni province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Tuesday. Taliban militants agreed Tuesday to free 19 South Korean church volunteers held hostage for more than a month after Seoul agreed to end all missionary work and keep a promise to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Ghazni, Afghanistan ? Taliban militants agreed Tuesday to release 19 South Korean church volunteers held hostage for six weeks after Seoul reaffirmed a pledge to withdraw its troops by year’s end and prevent Christian missionaries from working in Afghanistan.

The militants apparently backed away from demands for a prisoner exchange. But the Taliban, who killed two South Korean hostages last month, could emerge with enhanced political legitimacy for negotiating successfully with a foreign government.

Also Tuesday, a suicide bomber attacked NATO troops helping build a bridge in eastern Afghanistan, killing three American soldiers, a U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because not all families had been notified. NATO, in announcing the attack, said six soldiers also were wounded.

The accord for the South Koreans’ release came during one of the bloodiest periods of the Taliban’s war against U.S. and NATO forces since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

South Korea’s decision to hold face-to-face negotiations with the militants may dismay the United States government, which refuses to talk to the Taliban.

“Maybe they (the Taliban) did not achieve all that they demanded, but they achieved a lot in terms of political credibility,” said Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “The fact that the Koreans negotiated with them directly and more or less in their territory … is in itself an achievement.”

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday that the U.S. wanted the Koreans returned to their families and stressed that U.S. policy was not to make concessions to terrorists.

The Taliban kidnapped 23 Koreans as they traveled by bus from Kabul to Kandahar on July 19. The militants killed two male hostages in late July, then freed two women captives earlier this month.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said that the South Koreans – mostly women in their 20s and 30s – would be freed “in the coming days” and that tribal elders would act as go-betweens. He gave no further details.