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Turkish Prime Minister Confirms Release of 16 Workers Kidnapped in Iraq

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said 16 workers were released.

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Brig. Gen. Saad Maan Ibrahim, spokesman for Baghdad’s military command, confirmed the workers’ release, the Associated Press reported.

Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said the workers were freed in the city of Basra and were travelling to Baghdad.

The workers were seized by gunmen on 2 September while they slept in caravans at the site of a stadium in Sadr City.

The brazen abduction laid bare serious security gaps in the heavily guarded Iraqi capital. Two of the workers were freed earlier this month.

Davutoglu thanked “Iraqi friends” who had worked toward the men’s release, without elaborating.

He tweeted that they were now at the Turkish embassy in Baghdad, were “in good health” and would be returning home “in the shortest possible time”.

The workers were found in the area of Maseeb, 40 kilometers south of Baghdad, a police official told dpa. Two of them were released in mid-September.

Asked about the terms of the release, Faruk Kaymakci, the Turkish ambassador to Iraq, said none were discussed.

A Shiite militia group calling themselves the “Death Squads” released a video in early September showing the 18 Turks who had been kidnapped sitting in front of five armed men clad all in black.

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Baghdad has been torn by violence for over a decade now, with roadside bombs, suicide attacks and assassinations occurring nearly daily. In June 2014, militants from the terrorist group Islamic State took 49 employees of the Turkish consulate in Mosul in northern Iraq hostage.

Turkish workers kidnapped in Iraq return home