Al Arabiya

Turkey’s foreign ministry said on Friday that two Turkish Airlines pilots who were kidnapped in Lebanon in August were close to being released by their captors.

“Very favorable developments are under way concerning the two Turkish pilots, this matter has been largely settled,” Ahmet Davutoglu said on local television, adding that the men could be freed “within hours or days.”

The pilots were kidnapped in Beirut on August 9 by a Lebanese Shiite militia which said it had abducted the pair to secure the release of nine Lebanese citizens who had been kidnapped in Syria.

The nine citizens held in Syria since May 2012 have been released, Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told Reuters on Friday.

“The story is over,” Charbel said. “In the next 24 hours, they will be with us (in Lebanon).”

The militia which is believed to have abducted the pilots, named by the Lebanese media as a group named Zouar Imam Reza, ambushed a bus carrying the Turkish Airlines pilot and his assistant in Beirut as they left the airport on a Friday morning in August.

The pilots were seized just outside the airport, in an area controlled by the powerful Shiite Lebanese movement Hezbollah.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has denied any involvement in the kidnapping.

The pre-dawn abduction prompted Turkey to urge its citizens to leave the country, and raised new fears about the impact of Syria’s conflict on neighboring Lebanon.


(With AFP)