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16 kidnapped Turkish workers in Iraq released: Turkish PM

Xinhua, September 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Turkish workers kidnapped by gunmen in Iraq's capital of Baghdad have been released, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday.

"Turkey's Iraqi ambassador has just received our 16 workers that were derailed in Baghdad. I have talked to some of our workers on the phone," the prime minister posted on his official Twitter account.

The release was made after Turkish government met the captors' demands, the group said in a videotaped statement, which showed a black banner reading "Oh Hussein," a reference to Imam Hussein, the third of 12 imams recognized by Shiite Muslims as the successors of Prophet Muhammad.

The decision to release the kidnapped was made after Turkey "ordered the criminal al-Fat'h militia (Sunni militia in Syria)" to ease the siege of two towns in northwestern Syria and opened a safe passage for "10,000 innocent women, children, elderly and sick people" trapped there, the statement said.

A total of 18 Turkish workers kidnapped on Sept. 2, when unidentified gunmen riding 20 vehicles stormed a building of a Turkish construction company in the Shiite bastion of Sadr city district in eastern Baghdad.

Two of those were later released in the city of Basra, some 550 km south of Baghdad. Endit