PRAGUE: The Czech government is negotiating the release of two Czech women kidnapped in Pakistan in March, Czech President Milos Zeman said on Wednesday.

Zeman said the two women were alive and officials were negotiating in hope of getting them released.

Antonie Chrastecka and Hana Humpalova, who are both 24, were on the road from Iran to Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province, when they were seized in March.

“I can only say they are currently somewhere between Pakistan and Afghanistan and currently their release is being negotiated,” Zeman told CTK news agency when asked about the case during a meeting with students in the Czech city of Kolin.

There has been no official word of their fate since a video given to a Czech TV station was broadcast in June showing the two demanding the release of Pakistani national Aafia Siddiqui.

Siddiqui, a neuroscientist, was given an 86-year sentence by a US court in 2010 for shooting at FBI agents and soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Czech foreign ministry declined to comment. Zeman’s spokeswoman was unavailable for comment.