Japan confirmed that a man freed from Syria, an independent Japanese journalist kidnapped three years ago, said he appeared to be in good health.
Foreign Minister Taro Kono said that Japanese embassy officials met with Jumby Yasuda at an immigration center in southern Turkey, near the border with Syria, where Yasuda has been protected since being released on Tuesday.
Yasuda was kidnapped in 2015 by the al-Qaeda branch in Syria and has been held by several groups since then.
Japanese media reported that an al-Qaeda group had detained Yasuda, 44, after entering Syria from Turkey in 2015 and has since appeared occasionally in ribbons on the Internet, which appeared to be in dire straits.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights obtained a number of reliable sources about the Yasuda handover. He said that the Japanese journalist was released after being handed over to a non-Syrian military faction close to the Turkish authorities and working on Syrian soil.
According to the observatory, Yasuda, who was held in the western sector of the Idlib governorate, was handed over to an organization called "Guardians of Religion" and then to a Syrian citizen in the Khirbat al-Joz area of the Turkestan Islamic Party.
Reliable sources confirmed that the extradition deal was sponsored by a Turkish country, with information received about the payment of a large ransom in return for the release of the journalist, although the Tokyo government declined to pay.
Having precedents in negotiating with terrorist groups, and paying ransoms of hundreds of millions of dollars for the release of hostages, demonstrating its complex relations with extremist groups.
Doha has already paid huge sums to terrorists in Iraq to release a number of its citizens and members of the ruling family abducted in 2015.
The Washington Post reported that Qatar paid more than $ 1 billion to liberate 25 Qatari nationals who had been held hostage for about a year and a half.
The ransom was paid to several parties of the kidnappers and intermediaries, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah brigades and armed groups involved in terrorist acts.
