By Xinhua,
Ankara : Three German mountaineers kidnapped by the banned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) during a climbing expedition earlier this month have been released in eastern Turkey, Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin said on Sunday.
Ozugergin said “they are safe with the Turkish government” and in a good health condition, adding that “Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan has called German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to inform him.”
On July 8, PKK members kidnapped the three German mountaineers during a raid on a camp at a height of 3,200 meters of altitude on Mount Agri in eastern Turkey.
The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. About 40,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.