A Turkish businessman, Kahraman Sadikoglu, has been freed after almost two months as a hostage in Iraq and is expected home on Tuesday, the Turkish foreign ministry said.
Sadikoglu, who was seized on December 19, was freed late on Monday in the south of the country, where he spent the night at a British base before being flown to Baghdad, the spokesman said.
Turkish diplomats in the Iraqi capital were trying to arrange his return home on Tuesday, he added.
An unconfirmed report in the Vatan newspaper said the family of Sadikoglu, a shipping magnate, had paid a ransom of 500,000 dollars for his release.
The group that held him after his seizure at the southern port of Umm Qasr had reportedly demanded 20 million dollars.
Three companions who were seized with him, two Turks and an Iraqi, were freed last month.
Sadikoglu, who is reportedly one of the richest men in Turkey, owns an Istanbul-based shipping company that is active in the Iraqi Gulf ports of Basra and Umm Qasr.
The firm notably has contracts to salvage ships that were sunk in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Turkey borders Iraq to the north, and its nationals have been prime targets of the insurgents that are fighting the US-led occupation.
A total of some 80 Turks, most of them truck drivers plying Iraqi roads, have been killed in recent months.
A number of Turkish companies active in Iraq have agreed to cease operations in return for the release of employees taken hostage there.