BERLIN, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- The German government is in contact with the kidnappers in Iraq of two men from Leipzig.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed in a TV interview with private broadcaster RTL that the abductors had contacted the German authorities, but declined to reveal their demands.
The Arabic satellite news station al-Jazeera aired a tape showing René Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke who were seized Wednesday in the town of Baiji.
In the video, both men pleaded with their home government to do everything to get them released. The tape shows them sitting on the ground with four armed men standing behind them. A hand-written poster bore the sign: "Supporters of the Tauhad and Sunnah brigades."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel later said she was "very moved" by the video, and added she would do everything to free the two men.
Employed by German manufacturing and engineering company Cryotec Anlagenbau, the men worked at a detergent plant inside an industrial complex at Iraq's biggest oil refinery in Baiji, roughly 110 miles north of Baghdad in the Sunni triangle, where there are still pockets of opposition to the new Iraqi government.
Germans had been spared from kidnappings in Iraq until some two months ago, when archeologist Susanne Osthoff, 43, became the first German national to be abducted.
Speculation about a multi-million dollar ransom payment in connection with her release might have triggered more abductions, observers say.
