Turkish captives shown on tape
Armed men claiming to belong to an Iraqi group have displayed four men from among seven Turkish contractors captured in the occupied country.
A video obtained by Associated Press Television News (APTN) showed four armed men on Thursday demanding that Turkish companies end all business in Iraq and pull staff out.
The captors were seen standing behind the captives who were crouching on the ground and holding up their passports.
One of the captors read out a statement saying the captives worked for a Turkish construction company, Serka, that has been “serving” the US occupation forces.
The four Turks were identified as Tarkan Suleyman Arak, Ali Nuri Cesur, Erdal Belgin and Ozhan Karatas. Arak was identified as an engineer but the others’ jobs were not known.
Turks praised
They were kidnapped by “our Jihad groups” because of working for the Americans, said the armed men.
“We urge the Muslim Turkish people to reject these acts and pressure Turkish companies to cancel contracts and pull out their employees from Iraq until we liberate our country and expel the occupiers from our land,” said one of the men.
He also said they “appreciated the stand of the Turkish people” against abuse of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison. He also praised Turkey for “cancelling all its military contracts with the Zionist entity,” meaning Israel.
“We have decided to deal with the captives in a humanitarian way,” he concluded. “And in accord with the stand that may be adopted by (their) company to cancel all contracts and pull out employees from Iraq.”
Earlier this week, Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia news agency said two Turkish captives – Adnan Azizoglu and Tarkan Arikoglu – and their Turkoman driver, Fethi Kiyas, were released on Tuesday.
The three, working for Serka, were captured on Sunday in Fallujah on their way to the northern city of Mosul, the agency said.
It was not clear if the three released were among the seven Turkish captives first shown to reporters earlier in the week.