Two Turks risk execution - TV
2004-08-25 21:37
Ankara - A Turkish television channel on Wednesday aired footage showing two Turks, believed to be held hostage in Iraq by armed militants who have threatened to execute them unless their company withdraws from the country within 72 hours.
The NTV news channel identified the hostages as Abdullah Ozdemir and Ali Daskin, two engineers kidnapped from their worksite at an unidentified location in Iraq.
The video showed the two men sitting on the floor, holding up their passports, as two hooded and armed militants stood on either side of them with a black-and-white flag with Arabic writing in the background.
One of the hostages, Ozdemir, is heard saying: "We are very comfortable here. They are taking very good care of us."
Daskin appeals to Turkish firms not to work in Iraq.
The footage continued with a threat, in Arabic, of executing the two men if their company did not pull out of Iraq in 72 hours, said NTV.
It was not known when the video was taped.
At least six Turks being held
Turkish officials could not immediately confirm the abduction, but said they were investigating the report.
The latest abductions bring to at least six the number of Turks who are known to be in captivity in Iraq.
Several Turkish men, mostly truck drivers, have been kidnapped in the war-torn country and then released.
Only one Turkish national has been executed in Iraq so far.
In a video released last month, Murat Yuce, who worked for the Bilintur catering company, was shot in the head by his kidnappers, members of a group linked to alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
A second Bilintur employee abducted with Yuce - Aytullah Gezmen - was quoted as saying in a video released last week that his captors would kill him if Bilintur and its mother company, Tepe, did not withdraw from Iraq.
Both firms announced shortly afterwards they had pulled out their remaining personnel, but there has been no word of Gezmen's fate so far.
Turkish companies are keen to trade with Iraq, one of Turkey's principal trade partners before the 1991 Gulf War, but the recent wave of kidnappings have raised alarm among the business community.
After the murder of Yuce, a major Turkish truckers union called on its members to stop ferrying goods to US forces in Iraq until further notice.