ANKARA
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured Japan’s prime minister Tuesday that Turkey would share all its intelligence on two Japanese nationals kidnapped by terrorists in Syria.
According to Turkish presidential sources, Erdogan told Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a telephone call that Turkey was approaching the issue with sensitivity.
Erdogan and Abe emphasized the importance of intelligence and information sharing in the case. The president also highlighted the fact that Turkish citizens too had suffered in the regional chaos.
Earlier, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorist group released a video online that showed two Japanese hostages, freelance journalist Kenji Goto and security contractor Haruna Yukawa, kneeling in orange jumpsuits at an undisclosed location.
The masked militants in the video demanded a $200 million ransom for the release of the hostages within 72 hours to atone for the aid that Japan had promised earlier this week to countries affected by the U.S.-led international airstrikes' campaign against ISIL.
The Japanese government responded to the terrorist demands by saying that it would not "bow down to terrorism."
During the phone call, both leaders also exchanged views on bilateral relations and international issues as well as Turkey’s G-20 presidency and the nuclear power plant in the Black Sea region of Turkey.
