Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Sunday for the immediate release of five British men kidnapped in Iraq, rejecting a demand by their captors that London withdraw its troops from the country. "We will do everything in our power to secure our objective, which is the immediate release of the hostages," seized in Baghdad in May, he told reporters.
"The taking of hostages is completely unjustified, wholly unacceptable and we are making it clear they will not change our policy in any way," he added.
The call came after the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel broadcast a video on Tuesday in which an armed group demanded that Britain leave Iraq within 10 days.
A British management consultant and his four bodyguards, whose names have not been released to protect their safety, were abducted during a visit to an Iraqi finance ministry office in Baghdad on May 29.
The kidnappers set Britain a 10-day deadline from the date of the video's broadcast to pull out of Iraq. But they did not say what the consequences would be if they failed to do so.
Brown did not refer specifically to the deadline.
"I want the hostage-takers to accept their responsibility, to understand the consequences of what they are doing, to make possible the immediate release of the hostages, to allow them to come home at the earliest opportunity," he said.
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