8 Turkish Troops Freed in Iraq

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The New York Sun

IRBIL, Iraq — Kurdish rebels today released eight Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq two weeks after capturing them in an ambush inside Turkey, Kurdish government and insurgent leaders said.

The release came before Prime Minister Erdogan meets President Bush tomorrow in Washington to agree on measures against the rebels, and avert a cross-border offensive against the Kurdish rebel group.

A spokesman for the group that captured the soldiers, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, said by telephone that the eight were released this morning near the border between Turkey and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq’s north.

“The eight were freed this morning at 7:30 and handed over to Iraqi Kurdish officials in the mountains,” a PKK spokesman, Abdul-Rahman Chadarchi, said.

One of three Turkish Kurd lawmakers who traveled to northern Iraq to help negotiate the soldiers’ release, Fatma Kurtulan, said it was an emotional scene when the men were set free.

“I couldn’t hold my tears,” she said by telephone. “They were very happy. They all told us how well they were treated … They thanked us over and over.”

She added that the soldiers even expressed their gratitude to their captors for the way they had been treated before leaving.

“They kissed and gave long hugs to each other,” she said. “It was a bitter happiness.”

The soldiers were taken in an October 21 ambush inside Turkish territory. The ambush also left 12 soldiers dead and raised pressure on Turkey’s government to stage a cross-border offensive to fight Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.


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