Turkey to reopen Mosul consulate

ANKARA: Turkey is again to open a consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, four years after it was seized and its employees held hostage by Islamic State fighters, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

Ankara had opened a well-staffed consulate in Mosul, in a sign of Turkey´s ambitions in northern Iraq, before the rise of IS there and in neighbouring Syria. But 46 Turks, including diplomats, their children, special forces officers and other Turkish employees were taken hostage by the jihadists in June 2014. The hostages were freed in September 2014 after a three-month ordeal.

Symbolically, the consulate building was destroyed in a US-led coalition air strike in April 2016 carried out in coordination with Ankara. The city was retaken by Iraqi forces in June 2017.

"The consulates general in Mosul and (the southern Iraqi city) of Basra will resume operations within 100 days," Erdogan told a meeting on government plans after his June 24 election victory.