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Eight Turkish soldiers freed, on their way
home
4.11.2007
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November
4, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq', -- The
eight Turkish soldiers who were freed by PKK rebels
early on Sunday are on their way home, a senior
Iraqi Kurdish official told AFP.
"The soldiers are now at Erbil airport," he said on
condition of anonymity.
"They will leave for Turkey anytime now. Erbil
airport is closed at the moment as there are lot of
Iraqi Kurdish officials present there to see the
soldiers going to their homes."
The eight soldiers were released by the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) at 7:30 am (0430 GMT) Iraqi
time.
The
eight Turkish soldiers taken prisoner by the
Turkey's PKK rebels were freed and handed over on
Sunday to senior officials from Iraq's Kurdistan
regional government, a top Kurdish rebel leader told
AFP.
Abdurrahman Cadirci, the head of foreign relations
for the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, said the
eight were released at 7:30 am (0430 GMT) Iraqi
time.
"I personally handed them to Karim Sinjari, the
internal affairs minister at the Kurdistan Regional
Government and Othman Haji, the interior minister,"
Cadirci told AFP.
He said the soldiers' release came after mediation
from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and
Ahmed Turk, the head of the Party for Democratic
Society, a political group based in Turkey.
The KRG also confirmed the release of the eight
soldiers.
"After personal attempts by Kurdistan regional
president Massud Barzani, Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani and Kurdistan regional prime minister
Nechirvan Barzani, the Turkish soldiers who were
detained by the PKK were released this morning," the
KRG said in a statement.
www.ekurd.net
The soldiers were captured when their unit was
ambushed near the border with Iraq on October 21.
The attack left 12 other soldiers dead, raising
regional tensions as Turkey threatened to launch
military strikes in Iraqi territory to flush the
rebels from their bases.
The Turkish army never officially acknowledged the
soldiers' capture, instead listing them as missing
in action.
It also stepped up anti-PKK operations on the
Turkish side of the border and said it had killed at
least 80 rebels in the aftermath of the October 21
attack.
The ambush shocked Turkey and increased public
pressure on the Ankara government to take military
action against PKK rebels in Iraq.
The PKK, which is waging a campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey
that has cost 37,000 lives since 1984, released
photographs of the soldiers and said they were in
good health.
The PKK is considered a 'terrorist' organisation by
Turkey and by much of the international community.
On Saturday, Ankara warned it still retains the
option of a military strike inside northern Iraq to
attack the PKK camps, despite new measures by
Baghdad to clamp down on the separatists.
"All instruments remain on the table for Turkey,"
said Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan.
"Whether they will be used or not, or when they will
be used, is a matter of strategy."
Turkey has massed an estimated 100,000 troops along
its frontier with Iraqi Kurdistan amid mounting PKK
violence against the Turkish security forces.
www.ekurd.net
Iraqi officials said on Saturday they were setting
up new checkpoints in northern Iraq to try to
restrict the movement of PKK rebels and cut their
supply lines.
The Iraqi Kurdish authorities, accused by Ankara of
harbouring and even aiding the rebels, also began to
shut down the offices of a PKK-linked political
party.
But Ankara wants Iraq to urgently close PKK camps in
its northern mountains and arrest and extradite the
group's leaders.
Baghdad has stressed the difficulty of capturing the
PKK leaders.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself a
Kurd, said: "Those people are armed and up in the
mountains."
AFP
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