Articles About Terrorist Activities

Hurriyet

Three German mountaineers, held hostage by outlawed PKK separatists in Turkey for almost two weeks, arrived home in Germany late on Monday.

“We are very happy to be returning to Germany in good health,” one of the freed hostages Lars Holger Reime said in a brief statement carried on German television networks. 

“It was a difficult time, but we coped with it relatively well. We were relatively well treated by our kidnappers and on a physical level we are doing pretty well,” he was quoted by AFP as saying.

Reime, who refused to take questions, thanked the German and Turkish authorities for having resolved the matter without resorting to military action. “That was our big fear,” he said.

Reime, Helmut Johann and Martin Georpe abducted by the outlawed PKK on a climbing expedition this month were released on Sunday as the Turkish army launched a wider operation to rescue the captures.  

The outlawed PKK separatists had said they would hold the hostages until Berlin ended its crackdown on PKK in Germany.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a personal appeal for the release of the Germans, but Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the time rejected the demands for a change in policy in return for their freedom.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara, the European Union and the U.S. The group has in the past kidnapped people, among them soldiers, police officers, journalists and tourists.

Source: www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/9489741.asp?scr=1