ANKARA, Aug 29 (AFP) - Two Turkish hostages were released in Iraq on Sunday and are currently in the Turkish embassy in Baghdad, a senior diplomat told AFP here.
"Abdullah Ozdemir and Ali Daskin were released this afternoon as a result of efforts by the relevant Turkish authorities. They are in our embassy in Baghdad now," said foreign ministry spokesman Namik Tan.
He declined to give further details.
On Wednesday a Turkish television channel aired footage showing two Turks held hostage in Iraq by armed militants who threatened to execute them unless their company withdraws from the country within 72 hours.
They were identified as Ozdemir and Daskin, two engineers kidnapped from their worksite in Iraq.
The employer of the two men -- the Ankara-based Usluer-Sa/Ra joint venture which was repairing electricity networks in Iraq -- announced the same day that it was ending its operations in the war-torn country.
At least four other Turks remain in captivity in Iraq.
Only one Turkish national has been executed so far. In a video released last month, worker Murat Yuce was shown being shot in the head by his kidnappers, members of a group linked to alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
Several truckers, meanwhile, have been killed in violence on the roads of the country.
Several other Turks have been kidnapped and then released, mostly after their employers agreed to pull out from the country.
The main union of transporters in Turkey has called on its members to stop ferrying supplies for the US army, but many companies continue to ship goods to Iraq.
In the latest deadly incident, Ankara confirmed Saturday that a Turkish driver had been killed in Iraq along with an Iraqi man.
The bodies of the two men were identified by a Turkish diplomat in a morgue in Tikrit, where they were taken after being found in Baiji in northern Iraq.
It was not known whether the driver had been a hostage.
An extremist group calling itself the "Islamic Tawheed (Unification) Group" posted a statement on an Islamist website on Friday threatening to use force to stop Turkey sending supplies to the US army via its border with Iraq.
Turkish businesspeople have been keen to trade with Iraq, one of Turkey`s principal trade partners before the 1991 Gulf War, but the recent wave of violence has scared off many and has prompted Ankara to seek enhanced security measures for its nationals.