Turkish teacher grateful after Mongolia thwarts suspected kidnap
ULAANBAATAR: A Turkish teacher targeted in a suspected kidnap attempt thwarted by Mongolian authorities yesterday thanked his supporters as he left hospital after a checkup following his ordeal.
When asked who had attempted to abduct him, Veysel Akcay simply said “I don’t know.”
The drama unfolded on Friday as Mongolian authorities grounded a suspected Turkish air force jet after witnesses said assailants snatched a Turkish man associated with a religious group Ankara had branded as terrorists.
In recent weeks, Turkey’s intelligence agency had conducted operations abroad against associates of United States-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara said was behind a 2016 failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As many as five men grabbed Akcay from outside his home in Mongolia’s capital here and threw him into a minibus, according to friends and eyewitnesses.
The 50-year-old is director of a school that was allegedly associated with Gulen, although teachers there denied the connection. When he failed to show up for work, concerned family and friends notified the police.
Meanwhile, Akcay’s abductors had taken him to Genghis Khan international airport, where a small passenger jet landed around 1pm. The plane — with call sign TT4010 — is operated by the Turkish Airforce, according to data on flight tracking site flightradar24.com.
It was the beginning of a more than eight-hour standoff between the captors and Mongolian authorities, who refused to allow the plane to leave the runway.
As authorities summoned Turkish officials from their embassy, parliamentarians and hundreds of protesters clutching signs demanding Akcay’s release gathered at the airport.
As the standoff dragged on, Vice-Foreign Minister Battsetseg Batmunkh warned Turkish embassy officials that any attempt to abduct a person from Mongolian territory would constitute “a serious violation of Mongolia’s independence and sovereignty”.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu denied the accusations during a call to his Mongolian counterpart Tsogtbaatar Damdin, according to the Mongolian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
But officials were not convinced: “We are an independent nation. Do you think anyone can do abductions in our country?” parliamentarian Baasankhuu Oktaybri wrote on Twitter.
The plane took off at 9.25pm on Friday without Akcay, who was taken for questioning by police and later sent to a hospital.
“I thank you all,” he told his supporters as he left.