Turkey Says Islamic State Freed 49 Hostages Captured in June
By Selcan Hacaoglu
Bloomberg
Sep 20, 2014 9:46 AM ET
Turkey won the release of 46 citizens and three Iraqis taken hostage by Islamic State in a raid on a consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
The hostages, including Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz, arrived in Ankara by plane today after being handed to Turkish agents without a fight, Davutoglu said in televised comments. Turkey didn’t pay a ransom nor accept conditions in exchange for the release of the hostages, state-run Anadolu Agency said, citing unnamed officials.
“Our contacts intensified after midnight and they came home at 5 a.m. today,” Davutoglu said today in Azerbaijan, where he cut short a business trip to fly to Turkey to meet the hostages and take them to the capital. “After intense efforts that lasted days and weeks, in the early hours, our citizens were handed over to us and we brought them back to our country.”
Turkey has been under pressure from the U.S. and its allies to join the fight against the Islamic State, which has seized swaths of Syrian land along the Turkish border. More than 60,000 Syrian Kurd refugees crossed the border overnight, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said today. Turkey had been reluctant to provide military help while the hostage standoff persisted, although the country has confirmed sharing intelligence with allies about the Islamist group.
Religious Concerns
“The release of the hostages just made it more difficult for Turkey to firmly say ‘no’ to allies,” Haluk Ozdemir, head of international relations at Kirikkale University, said by phone today. Turkey may yet resist joining the fight as the majority of Turkish and Islamic State militants are Sunni Muslims, he said.
The U.S. will “take action against terrorists in Iraq or in Syria, but this is not America’s fight alone,” President Barack Obama said today in his weekly address.
The circumstances surrounding the hostage release were “strange,” according to Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai.
“They returned perfectly fine; it seems resolved through negotiations via Sunni tribes,” he said by phone. “It’s not going to look good because it shows Turkey in other countries’ eyes is playing a double game.”
Islamic State has beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker in response to U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq. The al-Qaeda breakaway group is also holding another British aid worker, Alan Henning, as hostage, the Foreign Office said Sept. 14.
Intelligence Tracked
Yilmaz and others, including diplomats, policemen and some family members including babies, entered Turkey at the Akcakale border crossing, according to Davutoglu.
The hostages were moved to eight different locations in Mosul and were tracked by drones and other intelligence during their captivity, Anadolu said. Five or six attempts to free them failed because of fighting in the area, according to the agency. The hostages were released in the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, NTV television said today, citing unnamed security officials.
“Turkey probably sought help from key Sunni clans in Iraq and Islamic State agreed to release hostages over considerations regarding balance of power in Iraq,” Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara, said by phone.
To contact the reporter on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at [email protected] John Bowker, Randall Hackley
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| NATO member Turkey transporting US-made Patriot missiles. |
Bloomberg
Sep 20, 2014 9:46 AM ET
Turkey won the release of 46 citizens and three Iraqis taken hostage by Islamic State in a raid on a consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
The hostages, including Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz, arrived in Ankara by plane today after being handed to Turkish agents without a fight, Davutoglu said in televised comments. Turkey didn’t pay a ransom nor accept conditions in exchange for the release of the hostages, state-run Anadolu Agency said, citing unnamed officials.
“Our contacts intensified after midnight and they came home at 5 a.m. today,” Davutoglu said today in Azerbaijan, where he cut short a business trip to fly to Turkey to meet the hostages and take them to the capital. “After intense efforts that lasted days and weeks, in the early hours, our citizens were handed over to us and we brought them back to our country.”
Turkey has been under pressure from the U.S. and its allies to join the fight against the Islamic State, which has seized swaths of Syrian land along the Turkish border. More than 60,000 Syrian Kurd refugees crossed the border overnight, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said today. Turkey had been reluctant to provide military help while the hostage standoff persisted, although the country has confirmed sharing intelligence with allies about the Islamist group.
Religious Concerns
“The release of the hostages just made it more difficult for Turkey to firmly say ‘no’ to allies,” Haluk Ozdemir, head of international relations at Kirikkale University, said by phone today. Turkey may yet resist joining the fight as the majority of Turkish and Islamic State militants are Sunni Muslims, he said.
The U.S. will “take action against terrorists in Iraq or in Syria, but this is not America’s fight alone,” President Barack Obama said today in his weekly address.
The circumstances surrounding the hostage release were “strange,” according to Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai.
“They returned perfectly fine; it seems resolved through negotiations via Sunni tribes,” he said by phone. “It’s not going to look good because it shows Turkey in other countries’ eyes is playing a double game.”
Islamic State has beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker in response to U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq. The al-Qaeda breakaway group is also holding another British aid worker, Alan Henning, as hostage, the Foreign Office said Sept. 14.
Intelligence Tracked
Yilmaz and others, including diplomats, policemen and some family members including babies, entered Turkey at the Akcakale border crossing, according to Davutoglu.
The hostages were moved to eight different locations in Mosul and were tracked by drones and other intelligence during their captivity, Anadolu said. Five or six attempts to free them failed because of fighting in the area, according to the agency. The hostages were released in the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, NTV television said today, citing unnamed security officials.
“Turkey probably sought help from key Sunni clans in Iraq and Islamic State agreed to release hostages over considerations regarding balance of power in Iraq,” Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara, said by phone.
To contact the reporter on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at [email protected] John Bowker, Randall Hackley
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