Two Iraqi militia officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said Tsurkov\u2019s release came about as a result of negotiations and not through a military operation to free her.\n<\/p>\n
The officials said one of the conditions for her release had been the withdrawal of U.S. forces currently stationed in Iraq \u2014 which had been agreed upon between Washington and Baghdad last year \u2014 and that the U.S. and Israel would not launch strikes on Iraq.\n<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke with Tsurkov\u2019s family and told them \u201cthe entire state of Israel is happy to see her return home.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani<\/a>\u00a0said in a post on X that Tsurkov\u2019s release was the \u201cculmination of extensive efforts exerted by our security services over the course of many months.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe reaffirm, once again, that we will not tolerate any compromise in enforcing the law and upholding the authority of the state, nor will we allow anyone to undermine the reputation of Iraq and its people,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n Al-Sudani came to power in 2022 with the backing of a coalition of Iran-linked Shiite parties, but since then has sought to balance relations between Washington and Tehran. In a recent interview with the AP, he said he sought closer ties with the Trump administration.\n<\/p>\n One of the most complicated issues for al-Sudani is how to handle the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of mostly Shiite, Iran-backed militias that formed to fight the Islamic State group. This coalition was formally placed under the control of the Iraqi military in 2016, although in practice it still operates with significant autonomy. Kataib Hezbollah is part of the PMF.\n<\/p>\n The Iraqi parliament was recently considering legislation that would solidify the relationship between the military and the PMF, drawing objections from Washington. The legislation has not moved forward to a vote.\n<\/p>\n An Iraqi army spokesperson said in a statement that \u201cfollowing exceptional security and intelligence efforts,\u201d authorities were able to \u201clocate the place\u201d where Tsurkov was being held, \u201creach it, and subsequently hand her over to the United States Embassy, which will in turn arrange for her reunion with her sister, who holds American citizenship.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What Iraqi officials say about Tsurkov\u2019s release Two Iraqi militia officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said Tsurkov\u2019s release came about as a result of negotiations and not through a military operation to free her. The officials said one of the conditions for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11573],"tags":[19927,8002,3717,9687,5022,19926,19925,4114],"class_list":["post-29667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philadelphia-breaking-news","tag-doctoral","tag-freed","tag-iraq","tag-kidnap","tag-kidnapped","tag-princeton","tag-princeton-university","tag-student"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Emma-Elizabeth-Tsurkov-2018.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philadelphia Viral News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"What Iraqi officials say about Tsurkov\u2019s release Two Iraqi militia officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said Tsurkov\u2019s release came about as a result of negotiations and not through a military operation to free her. The officials said one of the conditions for…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29669,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29667\/revisions\/29669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}