Saturday, September 20, 2014

Turkish hostages seized by ISIS in Iraq freed. - live updates




Turkish hostages seized by ISIS in Iraq freed.(AJ). (HD).


The 49 Turkish hostages seized by fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June have been brought safely back to Turkey by the country's intelligence agency, according to Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's prime minister.

The hostages, including Turkish diplomats, soldiers and children, were seized from Turkey's consulate in June.

Davutoglu said on Saturday the freed hostages were being brought to the southern Turkish city of Sanliurfa and that he would travel back from Azerbaijan, where he is on an official visit, to meet them.

"Today at 5am we brought our citizens who were detained in Iraq to our country. From my heart, I thank the families who maintained their dignity," Davutoglu said on his Twitter account.

He did not provide details on the circumstances of their release but said the hostages were freed through the Turkish intelligence agency's "own methods" and that no operation was carried out.

11:04 - Crowds brought to the airport by the buses of the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality are gathering at Esenboğa Airport to cheer the release of the Turkish hostages.

10:45 - Şamil Tayyar, a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), has claimed that the U.S. intelligence is behind the operation. "One of Turkey's reasons for not joining the [international] operation against ISIL was the hostages. Their release in this critical phase is a move by CIA," he said in a tweet.

Here are the updates as they happened throughout the day:

13:30 - Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), calls PM Davutoğlu to congratulate the government over the operation in a rare political gesture. (Click here to rest of this story)

13:00 - Another freed hostage said that the captive Turkish diplomat risked his life by resisting the ISIL militants with a gun to his head. (Click here to read the rest of this story)

12:47 - "Certainly, something happened." This was the response of a hostage when he was asked by a CNN Türk reporter if they suffered from torture or maltreatment at the hands of the ISIL militants.

12:40 - Turkey's 11th president Abdullah Gül welcomed the release of hostages and thanked to those who have been involved in these works. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet with Turkey's Consul General Öztürk Yılmaz and other consulate personnel on Sept. 21 at 11.30 a.m.

12:23 - "Just like the lives of our citizens here are sacred for us, the lives of all those who fled from Syria and Iraq to Turkey are sacred, regardless of their ethnicity," Turkish PM Davutoğlu says, concluding his address in the airport.

Sky's Senior Correspondent Ian Woods said: "It seems that some sort of deal must have been done because these are people, unlike the Western hostages, journalists and aid workers, these were people who were not in the country of their own volition.

"To describe this as something co-ordinated by the intelligence service suggests that a deal has been done. It was described as a rescue mission, but we should not think of this as such because is it unlikely they could rescue all 49 people without casualties."

12:17 - "I salute the unnamed heroes, like those who brought our citizens to Turkey. They acted in the name of the nation," Davutoğlu says.Hmm....How much ammo did that Turkish train deliver?Live updates here.

 Update: First details emerging of Turkey’s rescue of 49 hostages from ISIL. Hmmm....They (ISIS) just let them go home.....yeah whatevah.



















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