New Delhi: As negotiations for release of three Indians taken hostage in Iraq resumed, their employer company today (August 2, 2004) sounded positive on the parleys and hoped the captives would be freed soon.

"The negotiations are going on. These are going fine," Rana Abu-Zaineh, spokesperson for Kuwait and Gulf Link (KGL) transport, told over phone from Kuwait.

She said the company was waiting for the latest update from Iraq where the abductors' negotiator Sheikh Hisham Al-Dulaimi is engaged in the parleys with the KGL's representative Mahdi Saleh.

KGL hopes the hostages would be released soon, Abu-Zaineh said. The spokesperson insisted the company had "taken care" of all the demands of the abductors 'Islamic Secret Army - Holders of Black Banners' and noted "no trucks or buses of KGL are being plied in Iraq now."

Antaryami, Tilak Raj and Sukhdeo Singh along with three Kenyans and one Egyptian, all truck drivers working for KGL, were abducted in Iraq on July 21, and the kidnappers threatened to execute them if the company did not end its operations in the war-ravaged country.

Since then the militant group has been extending its deadline, the last of which expired at 8.30 PM IST yesterday (August 1, 2004).