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US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner has said Washington is in touch with Pakistan on the Warren Weinstein kidnapping case, despite both nations having differences over the November 2011 NATO strike. Weinstein, a 70-year-old U.S. aid worker, has made an emotional video appeal to President Barack Obama to respond to his kidnappers’ demands. He appeared in an al-Qaida video for the first time since he was kidnapped just days before he was to return home in August, reports Japan Today. “If you accept the demands, I live; if you don’t accept the demands, then I die,” he told Obama in the video. “We obviously remain very, very concerned about the safety and well-being of Mr Weinstein,” Toner said, adding that they are “obviously also in close contact with Mr Weinstein’s family, offering appropriate consular assistance, as they request it”. The two-minute, 40-second video was posted on jihadist forums by al-Qaida’s media arm as-Sahab, according to the U.S.-based monitoring service SITE. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has demanded that Washington end air strikes in Afghanistan , Pakistan , Somalia and Yemen , and release the 1993 World Trade Center bombers along with relatives of Osama bin Laden. Toner said the U.S. believes that Weinstein is “most likely” being held in Pakistan ’s lawless tribal areas, but cannot confirm it. Toner, however, maintained that the U.S. , as per policy, did not negotiate with terrorists. He added that they could not say for certain if the video was credible, and analysis was underway on when the video was made, reports The Express Tribune.

US working closely with Pakistan to recover kidnapped American worker