ISTANBUL, Jan 14 (AFP) - Three employees of one of Turkey's richest businessman kidnapped with him in Iraq in December have been released, Turkish NTV television said Friday.
The three, a Turk identified as Ahmet Yurttas and two Iraqis, a translator and a driver, had been kidnapped with business magnate Kahraman Sadikoglu, owner of an Istanbul-based freight company, in the area of the southern seaport of Umm Qasr, the report said.
The television suggested the business magnate could also be freed soon, but gave no details.
Yurttas, a ship captain working for Sadikoglu, was to return shortly to Turkey, according to NTV.
The Turkish foreign ministry, however, told AFP it could not immediately confirm the report.
Sadikoglu had been awarded contracts to refloat Iraqi vessels that sank in the Gulf during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.
NTV aired a video on December 25 showing a man, speaking in Turkish and English, who identified himself as Sadikoglu flanked by another hostage he said was Yurttas, stating the tape had been made two days before.
"We were taken hostage by a group four or five days ago on the grounds that we had done something bad in Iraq," he said on the tape.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul at the time said he was "closely following" the situation.
01/14/2005 15:02 GMT - AFP