ANKARA: Diplomats and soldiers trapped inside Turkey’s consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul had no option but to surrender this week after hundreds of heavily armed Islamist militants surrounded the building, the foreign ministry said yesterday.
The seizure by insurgents from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Wednesday of 49 Turks, including special forces soldiers, diplomats and children, has prompted criticism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government for failing to foresee the danger and evacuate the consulate sooner.
The ISIL offensive threatens to dismember Iraq and leaves Turkey facing a widening Islamist insurgency in two of its southern neighbours, with ISIL also making territorial gains in Syria near the Turkish border.
Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Naci Koru said every security precaution had been taken at the consulate but that events unfolded quickly and that Iraqi security forces stationed around the building abandoned their posts as ISIL seized Mosul.
“We gave an order (on Tuesday) to evacuate but our consul general told us that they were safer inside the consulate. He said it was not possible to evacuate under the circumstances,” Koru told reporters in Ankara.
Hundreds of insurgents surrounded the building the next day, he said, at which point the consul general called Ankara again.
“The militants were asking them to surrender in 10 minutes and said otherwise they would come in. We contacted our prime minister and foreign minister immediately and the decision (to surrender) was made,” Koru said.
“It wasn’t possible to confront such a large group with the number of security personnel inside the consulate.”
Reuters
