Tehran To Help Find Two Turkish Reporters In Syria

Ankara, March 16, IRNA - - Iranian Ambassador to Ankara Bahman Hosseinpour expressed on Friday Tehran’s readiness to help find two Turkish reporters in Syria. Hosseinpour told IRNA, the issue was indicated in a telephone conversation of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu with his Iranain counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi. Hosseinpour quoted Salehi as saying Iran provides nessesary assistance to Turkey in this regard. He expressed hope that the two reporters come back home soon. Pointing to the seven abducted Iranian engineers in Syria, the Iranian Ambassador also expressed hope the engineers would be released soon as well. Turkish journalists, Adem Özköse, a reporter for the magazine Gerçek Hayat (Middle East) and the daily Milat, and cameraman Hamit Coşkun, went missing near the northwestern city of Idlib five days ago. Five of the seven Iranians were kidnapped by unknown armed gunmen on their way to the 450-MW power plant in the troubled Syrian city of Homs on December 21. The technicians were building the city's Jandar power plant for the past two years. But, the two other Iranians were abducted one day after the initial kidnapping while on a mission to establish the whereabouts of the missing engineers. Iranians have become the target of abduction by unknown gunmen in Syria over the past months. In January, a group of gunmen in Syria had kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims traveling by road from Turkey to Damascus./end