Turkey mediates major East-West prisoner swap that frees WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich
Turkey's intelligence service said on Thursday that it helped coordinate one of the largest prisoner swaps between Russia and the US since the Cold War.
The prisoner swap saw Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian intelligence officer arrested in Germany for killing a former Chechen commander.
Gershkovich, a 32-year-old reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in Russia in March 2023. In July he was convicted on spying charges in a fast-track trial widely denounced as a sham by the US and international community. His case was highly watched amid tensions between the West and Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Turkey said Gershkovich was one of just 26 people, including two minors, from the United States; Germany; Poland; Slovenia; Norway; Belarus; and Russia involved in the swap.
Ten Russians, including two minors, were handed over in return for 16 westerners detained by Russia, the Turkish presidency said, hailing a "historic prisoner exchange operation" organised by Turkey's National Intelligence Service, also known as MIT.
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Turkey said 10 prisoners had been moved to Russia, 13 to Germany and three to the United States.
The German government confirmed the release and said those released were "unjustly imprisoned in Russia".
“They are out of Russia. Earlier today they were flown to Turkey,” US President Joe Biden said on Thursday, adding their release was an “incredible relief” to the prisoners’ families.
Biden said that Russian "political prisoners" were included in the swap deal and that Germany wanted nothing in return for its cooperation, though it had to make significant concessions.
Turkey’s role in the swap underscores how it has positioned itself as a broker between the US and Moscow despite being a member of the Nato alliance. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one of the few Nato leaders to still meet with Putin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Other Middle Eastern states have avoided trying to choose sides in tensions between Russia and the US, billing themselves as valuable mediators.
In December 2022, the United Arab Emirates facilitated the release of American basketball player Brittney Griner from Russia, in an exchange deal that released notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Gershkovich was expected to depart from Turkey for the US around noon EST time on Thursday. His arrival in Ankara was part of a carefully choreographed process that has defined previous prisoner exchanges between Russia and the West.
Gershkovich was at an airport lounge in the Turkish capital of Ankara while an American aircraft was refuelling before taking him to the US. The plane is expected to depart around 12:30 pm EST.
Reporters Without Borders, a media rights group, said it was "hugely relieved” that Gershkovich, a US citizen and child of Soviet immigrants, had been released.
"The Russian government's continued policy of state hostage-taking is outrageous. Journalists are not spies and they must never be targeted for political purposes," the group said.
Washington had also been working for the release of Whelan, 54, who was arrested in 2018 in Moscow and charged with espionage.
Whelan was working in security for a US vehicle parts company when he was arrested, and has always asserted that the evidence against him was falsified.
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