Japan is considering all possible ways to free two hostages held by members of the Islamic State, and two Japanese have offered to try to negotiate.
The Islamic State group said in a video message released Tuesday that it would kill two Japanese hostages within 72 hours if it did not receive $200 million by then.
Based on the time it was posted, that video expires on Friday. Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Japan was trying to make contact with those holding the hostages - 47-year-old freelance journalist Kenji Goto, and 42-year-old Harun Yukave, the founder of a private security company. Suga said Japan has not received any message from Islamic State since the video was released. Ko Nakata, an expert on Islamic law and a former professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, told reporters that he had the ability to contact the Islamic State. He and Kosuke Tsuneoka, a Japanese journalist who was held hostage in Afghanistan in 2010, both offered to try to make contact with members of the Islamic State and try to rescue the hostages. When asked by reporters if Japan was ready to consider the offer of Tsuneoka and Nakata to intervene, government spokesman Suga said that Tokyo was ready to consider all possible ways to save the two hostages. It is not clear whether the two would be able to contact and negotiate with the Islamic State group as private individuals even if they traveled to Syria. Japan does not have a diplomatic mission in Syria. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who returned yesterday from a one-day trip to the Middle East, said that he will not give in to terrorism and will continue to cooperate in providing humanitarian aid to those affected by conflicts in that area. Japan has received offers of cooperation in this crisis from several countries including Jordan where Deputy Foreign Minister Yasuhide Nakjama met with King Abdullah II
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