The South Korean hostage being held by savages in Iraq has not been murdered. Yet.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants threatening to behead a South Korean hostage in Iraq unless Seoul withdraws its troops have agreed to allow more time for talks on his fate, an Iraqi mediator told Reuters on Tuesday.

Jama’at al-Tawhid and Jihad, suspected of links to al Qaeda, initially set a Monday night deadline in a videotape which showed Kim Sun-il pleading for his life. But Mohammed al-Obeidi, an Iraqi working for South Korean security firm NKTS in Baghdad, said Iraqi clerics who were in talks with Kim’s captors had told him the deadline had been extended.

Seoul has rejected the militants’ demands to pull troops out of Iraq and scrap plans to send more.

“The kidnappers have said they are willing to negotiate as long as the Korean government stops making provocative remarks and softens its tone on troop deployment,” Obeidi said.

A member of parliament for South Korea’s ruling party said clerics involved in the talks had confirmed Kim, 33, was still alive.

“Those clerics, who also had helped release Japanese hostages earlier, told me in telephone talks this morning and an email this evening they saw Kim Sun-il this morning in Baghdad,” Kim Seung-gon told Reuters.