“I’m on my way to the airport [to fly back to Beirut], interrupting my vacation for a second consecutive time, just like last year,” Inan Ozyildiz, Turkey’s ambassador to Lebanon, told Al-Monitor by telephone, as the news broke that two Turkish Airlines pilots were abducted early in the morning today, Aug. 9, a short distance from the Rafik al-Hariri Airport on their way to their hotel. “It’s an unfortunate incident. Today is the first day of the end of Ramadan for Shiites, and the second day for the Sunnis. We are working on all fronts to help bring the pilots home safe.”   

Ozyildiz recalled that Aydin Tufan Tekin, a Turkish businessman, was kidnapped last year on Aug. 15, which was followed two days later by the abduction of another Turkish citizen, Abdulbasit Arslan, a truck driver. Tekin was released on Sept. 11, and Arslan followed a week after.

“It’s the same story,” Ozyildiz said. “They are keeping Turkey responsible for the nine Lebanese people who are kept hostage in Azaz [within the Syrian border], south of Kilis, for over a year. They believe we have a role to play [to bring them home].”

The Turkish authorities, however, stress that these nine Lebanese Shiite pilgrims are in the hands of a split gang that listens to no authority and draws attention to the complexities of this war-torn theater in Syria, where the sectarian divides play a tremendous role in support of or resistance to the Bashar al-Assad regime. According to United Nations records, more than 100,000 people have already died in that civil strife.