ALGIERS - Algeria's Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni on Tuesday denied that talks were under way to secure the release of 31 European tourists missing in the country's vast southern Sahara region, and said his government still had no idea what had happened to them.
"I can tell you there are no negotiations, there is no contact with anyone," Zerhouni said on state-run radio following a meeting with a parliamentary committee.
"The most recent indications leave us optimistic that they are still alive. We have found clues in the area such as clothes which they left behind," Zerhouni said.
"We have not ruled out any eventuality," he added.
His denial came a day after Algerian officials denied that Tourism Minister Lakhdar Dorbani was engaged in talks to secure the release of the tourists: 15 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss nationals, a Dutchman and a Swede, some of whom have been missing since February.
Algeria has deployed thousands of soldiers to hunt for the tourists, who were travelling in six distinct groups without guides when they disappeared mysteriously in the space of a month in the vast desert, which covers two million square kilometres (775,000 square miles) in Algeria alone.
Numerous theories have circulated over the disappearances.
Some have speculated that the tourists simply got lost when their satellite navigation system failed, while others believe they were kidnapped by one of the many bands of smugglers and drug runners that operate in Algeria's southern Sahara, or by a militant group linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
The preferred theory over the past few days has been that the tourists were kidnapped by bandits seeking ransom money from European governments.
"In so far as their situation is concerned, anything is possible. We cannot say what their true situation is," said Zerhouni.
The interior minister's denial of talks dimmed hopes that the missing tourists would soon be found, which were fuelled Sunday when state radio reported that Tourism Minister Dorbani had informed a parliamentary committee of talks to release the tourists.
The ministry denied any such talks were under way on Monday.
Also raising hopes that the mystery would soon be elucidated, a state radio reporter based in the Illizi region, 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) southeast of Algiers, said the disappearance of the tourists was "on the brink of being solved."
"Optimism reigns in Illizi with regard to a happy ending to this affair and to the impending return, safe and sound, of the tourists," the reporter said.
Quoting unidentified sources, he said two groups of European tourists had been pinpointed in southern Algeria, one in Illizi and the other near the city of Tamanrasset, 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of the Mediterranean capital.
Police in Algiers said last week that investigators had found a lorry that belonged to a German couple who went missing on March 8. It was found some 150 kilometres west of Illizi.
On Sunday Algeria's El Watan newspaper quoted security officials as saying that the tourists were being held by bandits in the Tamelrik mountain range, 150 kilometres west of Illizi, and that talks on their release had been underway for three weeks.
A diplomat in Bamako, the capital of neighbouring Mali, said on condition of anonymity on Sunday that the tourists had been kidnapped by smugglers, who may have links to an Islamist group, and the talks were being kept discreet as the lives of the tourists were in danger.
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