Red Crescent worker is sent back to Turkey

Pekcan was brought from the American Military Hospital in Mosul by a U.S. ambulance plane, and his treatment will continue at the Gulhane Military Hospital in Ankara, the Foreign Ministry said.

Turkey appreciated the American and Iraqi authorities’ for their help and support. "Turkey wishes these kind of hateful attacks to the humanitarian aid groups do not recur from now on," the statement said.

Turkey sent humanitarian aid to the Tal Afar town in Iraq via Turkish Red Crescent earlier in this month. A group of Turkish Red Crescent workers, along with a reporter and a cameramen, left the town for Mosul in order to meet the Iraqi Red Crescent officials. There were no escorts accompanying them when they came under attack. Three Red Crescent staff, including Pekcan, and the two Ihlas News Agency employees, were injured during the incident.

Tal Afar is a Turkmen populated town in northern Iraq and was devastated by a several-day-long U.S. operation that killed more than 50 people and displaced thousands of others. The massive U.S. attacks have sparked deep concern in Ankara, which sees protection of the rights of Turkmens, a community sharing close ethnic ties with Turkey, as a high priority in post-war Iraq.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul had talked to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on the phone and told him that Turkish-U.S. cooperation in Iraq could be halted if the attacks did not stop. But Ankara has subsequently told Washington that the statement was meant to express once again the deep Turkish concern over the situation in Tal Afar.