ANKARA: Thirty-two truck drivers abducted by militants in Iraq three weeks ago were handed over to Turkish officials on Thursday and Ankara is working to secure the release of other Turks held there, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

There was no news on the 49 remaining Turks, including special forces soldiers, diplomats and children, who were seized in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants on June 11, a day after the truck drivers were taken captive.

“The 32 drivers kidnapped in Mosul have been received by our consulate and they are currently en route to Arbil,” Davutoglu told a news conference in the Turkish capital.

He said a Turkish Airlines plane had taken off from Istanbul for the Iraqi Kurdistan capital Arbil and would bring the drivers to Ankara on Thursday evening.

“We will continue to work extensively on the release of our citizens who were left behind,” he said, adding that the drivers were in good health.

Turkey has close trade and political relations with the Kurdish-controlled area located to the east of Mosul and which has not been targeted by ISIL.

The truck drivers, who were abducted by ISIL militants while they were delivering diesel, were initially held at a power plant in the Gyarah region of Mosul.

The seizure of so many Turks in Iraq has prompted criticism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government for failing to foresee the danger and to evacuate the Mosul consulate sooner.

But Erdogan, who declared his candidacy for the August presidential election on Tuesday, has accused his opponents of trying to make political capital out of a highly sensitive security situation.

Turkey had warned that it would retaliate if any of its 80 nationals seized by the Al-Qaeda splinter group were harmed and ambassadors of the NATO defense alliance held an emergency meeting in Brussels at Turkey’s request.