ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Islamic militants have released some 30 Turkish truck drivers who they captured in Iraq last month, a private news reported Thursday.
Turkish Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately able to confirm the report by the private Dogan news agency, but the wife of one of the drivers told The Associated Press that she had spoken to her husband, Ramazan Simsek, who confirmed the truck drivers were freed.
Nihal Simsek, whose son was also captured, said the drivers were heading toward Arbil, in Iraq's northern Kurdish region and would cross into Turkey in the evening.
The militants from the al-Qaida-inspired group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seized the truck drivers in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on June 9.
They also seized 49 people from the Turkish consulate in Mosul three days later. There was no immediate word on any release for them.