Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu appeared to confirm for the first time that two Turkish intelligence officers have been captured in northern Iraq, saying the government was not in direct talks with the Kurdish militant PKK group to bring them back.
Çavuşoğlu was asked in an interview with Al-Monitor whether the head of Turkish intelligence Hakan Fidan would travel to Erbil for talks about two senior Turkish intelligence officers.
"The PKK has kidnapped local authorities, ordinary civilians, doctors, policemen and everybody, and so this is a terrorist organization. Of course, our institutions have been working to bring back all our citizens that the PKK kidnapped, but our country doesn't - we didn't have any direct contact with the PKK to bring those two persons mentioned back", Çavuşoğlu responded.
Two MİT spies who were trying to infiltrate the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to assassinate Cemil Bayık, a commander, had been ambushed and detained in the Sulaymaniyah city of northern Iraq on August 3, militant group says.
