Ankara - Three German mountaineers taken hostage on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey by militants from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) are in good health, according to PKK reports posted on the website of the PKK-linked Firat news agency. In two statements posted by Firat, the PKK once again called for Turkey to halt military operations in the Mount Ararat region and called on Germany to end "hostile polices" against the group, threatening that it could target German economic interests in Turkey.
"The (hostage taking) came onto the agenda as a reaction by (our) guerrillas against the German government's hostile attitudes, along with those of the Turkish state, towards our people and freedom movement," the statement said.
"Until now we haven't had any hostile attitude towards the German people or state ... If we had have had such an attitude we could have given much harm to German economic interests in Turkey. Everybody knows that we have the strength to inflict large damages on German economic interests," the statement said.
Lars Holger Renne, 33, Martin Georg S., 47, and Helmut Johann H., 65, all from Bavaria, were taken hostage late Tuesday night when a group of five PKK guerrillas raided a 3,200-metre camp on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey.
