The Daily Star - Turkey has no new information on 11 hostage pilgrims, June 5 2012

By Wassim Mroueh

BEIRUT: Turkey has no new information on the 11 Lebanese hostages captured by Syrian rebels two weeks ago, a senior adviser to Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Monday, while Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he was in contact with relevant officials to secure the hostages’ release. Speaking to The Daily Star, Ersat Hurmuzlu, a senior adviser to Gul, said that no new information, negative or positive, has emerged on the fate of the kidnapped pilgrims.

“Turkey was asked to make efforts to reach a positive result, but nothing resulted [from the initiative],” Hurmuzlu said, adding that Turkish efforts have stalled.

The Turkish official said the information that Ankara and the Lebanese Cabinet had received earlier indicated that that the hostages were “OK.”

“But we have no information on the place where they are being held or who has kidnapped them,” Hurmuzlu said.

The 11 men were kidnapped in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on their way back from pilgrimage in Iran on May 22. Women and elderly men were allowed to go and they returned to Lebanon.

An unknown Syrian rebel group claimed to be behind the abduction of the Lebanese, and said releasing them was contingent on Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah apologizing for his support of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which has been grappling with a relentless uprising since March last year.

For his part, Mikati said he was closely following up on the hostages, who have now been held for two weeks.

“We discussed this issue during my visit to Turkey [last week] and we are closely following up on it with all relevant groups; we hope that a positive outcome will be reached,” Mikati told reporters after visiting Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai at his Bkirki residence.

The kidnapped men are residents of the Beirut southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah and Amal. The two parties have been successful in their calls for calm from the relatives of the pilgrims, who have refrained from taking their frustration to the streets.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour and Hezbollah officials were not available for comment.

Nasrallah ignored the captors’ demand for an apology in a speech last week, urging them to release the “innocent” hostages and settle any problem with him, whether through peace or war.

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