Turkish workers, kidnapped in Iraq, released, says PM Davutoglu

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said 16 workers were released.

The men, snatched on September 2 from a stadium they were building on the outskirts of Baghdad, are expected to return to Turkey on Wednesday or Thursday after a debriefing, the chief executive of Nurol Holding, their employer, said.

The pair of Turkish workers released two weeks ago, one of whom had health problems, were freed in Basra, a city a few 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of the capital.

No further information was available about the circumstances of their release or when they were freed.

The group gave the Turkish government three demands in return for the men: To stop deploying Turkish troops to Iraq; stop bringing Kurdish gas to Turkey which they say is “stolen”; and to tell Al-Qaida affiliated Jabat al Nusra and other linked groups to end the siege on the Shia villages of Fu’ah, Zuhara and Kefraya in Syria’s Idlib province.

The brazen abduction laid bare serious security gaps in the heavily guarded Iraqi capital. “Preparations are underway to take them back to the country”.

A video of the kidnapped Turkish workers was released online Sunday, in which a captured Turkish man reads a statement saying they were treated well by their captors, RUDAW reported.

Mr. Davutoglu said Wednesday Turkish companies would continue to do business in Iraq.

Shiite militias, many linked to pro-Iranian political factions, play a key role in the fight against Islamic State Sunni militants who have seized much of Sunni northern and western Iraq.

This story has been corrected to show that 16 Turkish workers were released Wednesday, not 18.