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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Aug 4 (AFP) - 22h36 -
Kurdish rebels in eastern Turkey on Thursday freed a
government army conscript they had held for three
weeks, and the 21-year-old man reportedly said he
had been well-treated by his captors, Anatolia news
agency said.
Coskun Kirandi, who had been abducted by members of
the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on July 11 near
the eastern town of Tunceli, was handed over to a
delegation of four civilians in a rural area close
to the town, the agency said.
In an interview with Anatolia the young man, who was
on leave from the army when he was seized, said his
captors had kept him on the move throughout the
entire period of his detention.
Shortly before he was freed, a pro-Kurdish
television station which broadcasts into Turkey's
mainly Kurd regions from Belgium aired an interview
with the soldier in which he said he was in good
health and had not been tortured.
"They behaved well towards me," he said.
Attacks by the PKK have been on the rise since June
last year, when the group declared an end to a truce
it had unilaterally initiated five years earlier.
On Monday this week the group freed Hasim Akyurek,
the mayor of a town in Bingol Province, southeastern
Turkey, who it had abducted five days earlier.
Speaking to the news agency, the young soldier freed
on Thursday said he did not know why the rebels had
abducted him.
AFP
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