Forty-nine Turkish hostages seized by Islamic State militants in Iraq have been freed in what Turkey's President described as a covert rescue operation.
The hostages - including diplomatic staff, special forces soldiers and children - were taken from the Turkish consulate in Mosul in Iraq on June 11 after the city was overrun by Islamic State (IS) fighters.
Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the captives were released after a "pre-planned operation" involving the country's intelligence services.
"After intense efforts that lasted days and weeks, in the early hours, our citizens were handed over to us and we brought them back to our country," he said.
President Tayyip Erdogan said: "I thank the Prime Minister and his colleagues for the pre-planned, carefully calculated and secretly conducted operation throughout the night.
IS fighters in Mosul, Iraq. File image "MIT (the Turkish intelligence agency) has followed the situation very sensitively and patiently since the beginning and, as a result, conducted a successful rescue operation."
Police formed a cordon outside the airport in the southern Turkish city of Sanliurfa as the hostages arrived in buses with curtains drawn.
The Prime Minister, who cut short an official trip to Azerbaijan to travel to Sanliurfa, hugged the hostages before boarding a plane with them to the capital, Ankara.
Mr Davutoglu did not provide further details on the circumstances, but added the released was carried out through "MIT's own methods".
The group is still holding British hostage Alan Henning Sky's Senior Correspondent Ian Woods said: "It seems that some sort of deal must have been done because these are people, unlike the Western hostages, journalists and aid workers, these were people who were not in the country of their own volition.
"To describe this as something co-ordinated by the intelligence service suggests that a deal has been done. It was described as a rescue mission, but we should not think of this as such because is it unlikely they could rescue all 49 people without casualties."
Seizure of the hostages put Turkey in a difficult position as a summit of 30 countries met in Paris last week to co-ordinate their response to the IS threat.
The nations agreed to "support the Iraqi government by any means necessary - including military assistance".
Turkey resisted joining the coalition and the United States was careful not to push Ankara too hard as it worked to free the hostages.
Islamic State has killed two US journalists and a British aid worker who were working in Syria in retaliation for airstrikes that Washington launched against them in Iraq.
Mr Cantlie was seen in an IS video IS is still holding two British hostages which it captured in Syria who have appeared in videos released by the group.
A group of Muslim scholars has made a direct appeal to the group to release hostage Alan Henning.
In a video message posted online, the men told the 47-year-old's captors that killing him would be against Islamic law.
Mr Henning, a taxi driver from Salford, was delivering aid in Syria when he was captured in December near the town of al Dana.
A video released on Thursday showed British journalist John Cantlie, who is also believed to be held by IS.
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