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Turkish hostage released in Iraq
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-07 01:26

A Turkish driver taken hostage in Iraq was freed by his captors on Monday, Turkey's foreign minister said. The release came a day after the driver's company said it would withdraw from Iraq in line with kidnappers' demands.

Mithat Civi, a Turkish truck driver, is seen here with a Quran he received as gift from one of his captors, shortly before his release, at Ramadi, Iraq, Monday, Sept. 6, 2004. [AP]

Mithat Civi, who was captured on Saturday, was released in Iraq "as a result of our intense efforts," Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters in Ankara.

The Turkish transport company that employed Civi, Renay International, said on Sunday it was withdrawing from Iraq in an effort to save the life of the 48-year-old hostage, whom Iraqi militants had threatened to behead.

Ghassan Jasim Abbel, whose Kuwait Falcon Co. contracted with Renay International for some hauls in Iraq, said Monday he had seen an Arab TV report of Civi's release and was hopeful, but was awaiting a call from the driver to be sure.

"God willing, it will be confirmed," Abbel told The Associated Press.

"We did not pay any money for his release," he added, saying the announcement to stop doing business in Iraq — made Sunday — was apparently enough.

Civi, a father of three, had been working in Kuwait and had left for Iraq a month ago.

Renay, a company based in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, was the latest in a series of Turkish companies to pull out of Iraq to try to secure the release of captured employees.

A group calling itself the Islamic Resistance Movement-Al-Noaman Brigades had released a tape showing a bearded man, purported to be the Turkish truck driver, sitting in front of a black banner bearing the group's name in gold-colored Arabic characters.

The militants threatened to behead the Turk unless his employers and their Kuwaiti contractor ended operations in Iraq. The videotape was aired on Al-Arabiya television on Saturday.

Last month, Murat Yuce, a Turk who worked for a company that provided laundry services, was shot dead in Iraq by al-Qaida-linked militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant held responsible for a series of bombings, kidnappings and other attacks in Iraq.

In a separate kidnapping case last week, a tape purporting to show three Turkish hostages being killed was sent to Al-Jazeera TV from the Tawhid and Jihad militant group, which also is linked to al-Zarqawi. The bodies of two slain Turkish citizens and an unidentified man were discovered in northern Iraq later but it could not be confirmed whether the bodies found in northern Iraq belonged to the three men in the video.

Militants waging a violent 16-month insurgency in Iraq have increasingly turned to kidnapping foreigners in an effort to drive out coalition forces and contractors.

At least seven Turkish companies have announced their withdrawal from Iraq to secure the release of kidnapped staff, and a Turkish truckers' association has ceased transporting goods to the U.S. military in Iraq.

But still, some 1,500 Turkish drivers are ferrying goods to Iraq daily and several hundred others are working as contractors in Iraq.

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