ISLAMABAD: There are strong indications from relevant government quarters that the long-drawn negotiations between top security agencies and kidnappers of Pakistan Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin have finally paved the way for his safe release by the next week. In fact, there is reason to believe that he could even be released within the next two days, sources monitoring negotiations told The News on Thursday.

Even Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi hinted on Wednesday that the negotiations with Ambassador Azizuddin's captors have finally succeeded and stage is set for his release. Talking to the media outside Parliament on Wednesday, he said: "The nation and family of Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin will hear good news soon." However, he maintained that due to the sensitivity of the matter he could not go into the specifics about the missing envoy's whereabouts and talks with his captors. His statement comes on the heels of behind-the-scene assurances of all-out efforts for the ambassador's safe return to his family from the highest level, including President Pervez Musharraf and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani who was incidentally Azizuddin's batch mate in the army.

On Thursday, Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Sadiq told a news briefing categorically that the government was "very hopeful" about early recovery of ambassador Azizuddin and declared: "We know he is safe."

†The anxiety-stricken family members of ambassador Azizuddin had made a frantic appeal to the kidnappers and the authorities here last week to expedite all efforts for his safe recovery. They are hoping that ambassador Azizuddin's ordeal will end soon and he will be with them before his 57th birthday which falls on May 31.

"His wife, three children and siblings are almost on the edge now and praying hard for his early and safe release before his birthday on May 31," a close family friend and a former colleague of the missing envoy told The News the other day.

"It is undoubtedly the biggest test of his wife Naila's life but she takes solace in the information that he has not been harmed," the family friend said while talking to this correspondent. Sharing her anguish the friend added: "Her eyes are constantly set on the entrance door of her house in Rawalpindi's Safari Villas in the hope that one of these days Tariq will just walk through it."

In a clear sign that the missing envoy's family was running out of patience after an almost a three-month long wait, it expressed deep anguish in a statement issued here on Saturday (May 3).

While appreciating the efforts being made by the authorities and acknowledging the complex nature of the matter, the family said in the statement that it failed to understand why it was taking so long to secure his release despite all the available resources.