I am very relieved that the German national who was kidnapped in Baghdad on Monday was released this morning. She was handed over to the care of our embassy in Baghdad by the Iraqi authorities a few minutes ago.

We would like to thank the Iraqi Government and the Iraqi security authorities, which have given us their full support during this period and made a decisive contribution to bringing this case to a happy conclusion. I would also like to thank the Federal Government crisis unit, which has worked tirelessly in recent days to find a solution to this case.