Turkey hostages set free by IS militants

• 49 hostages were captured from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul
• World united in fight against IS, says Obama
• 45,000 Syrian Kurds enter Turkey: deputy PM

Ankara: Dozens of Turkish hostages seized by Islamic militants in Iraq three months ago were freed and safely returned to Turkey today, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Saturday, ending Turkey's most serious hostage crisis.

The 49 hostages were captured from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul, Iraq on June 11, when the Islamic State group overran the city in its surge to seize large swaths of Iraq and Syria. Their release contrasts with the recent beheadings of two US journalists and a British aid worker by the Islamic State group, but it wasn't immediately clear what Turkey had done to secure the safe return of the hostages.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said the hostages are 49 Turkish consulate employees -- 46 Turks and three local Iraqis. They include Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz, other diplomats, children and special forces police. The hostages were released early on Saturday and had arrived in Turkey, Davutoglu told Turkish reporters during a visit to Baku, Azerbaijan. He cut his visit short to meet them in the province of Sanliurfa, near Turkey's border with Syria and was bringing them back to Ankara on his plane. He didn't say where the release took place, but Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said the hostages had been held in eight separate addresses in Mosul. Their whereabouts were monitored by drones and other means, it said. 45,000 Syrian Kurds fleeing advancing IS jihadists have poured across the border into Turkey since Ankara opened up its southern frontier on Friday, the country's deputy prime minister said.