German tourist hostages free in Turkey

Three German tourists kidnapped by Kurdish separatist guerrillas in eastern Turkey earlier this month have been found abandoned by their captors on a hillside, a Turkish official said on Sunday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the three, part of a 13-member climbing team seized on Mount Ararat near the Iranian border, were now in the care of staff at the German Embassy in Ankara.

The Agri provincial governor said Turkish gendarme forces had found them while combing through the region for the rebels.

"Because of our heavy operations in the region, the PKK was forced to leave them on a hilltop and flee . The aim of our operations has been to prevent the terrorists from taking the hostages across the border," said Mehmet Cetin, governor of Agri Province.

The PKK, which has been fighting since 1984 for an independent Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey, said it had seized them in protest against what it called Berlin's recent hostile actions against Kurdish separatists.

Last month Germany banned Kurdish television station Roj TV, which Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble described as a mouthpiece for the PKK, and last year Berlin extradited two PKK militants to Turkey.

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Foreign Minister Steinmeier was informed of their release by telephone by his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babacan.

"Given the circumstances, they are quite well," Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin, thanking Turkish authorities for their help. "The main thing is that we, together with the released men and their families, are very relieved."

Asked in a television interview if Germany had paid a price for the hostages, either in the form of a ransom or a political concession, Chancellor Angela Merkel declined to give details.

"You know that we do everything to get hostages released and in this case it succeeded. I don't think there is anything more to say," Merkel told German ARD television, also thanking German and Turkish authorities.

Kidnapping tourists is an unusual tactic for the outlawed PKK, which has laid bombs at holiday resorts but focuses attacks largely on military targets in southeast Turkey. Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organisation, as do the European Union and the United States.