Brown defends Iraq hostage negotiations

LONDON, June 22 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the government has "left no stone unturned" in seeking the release of hostages held in Iraq.

Responding to criticism from the father of one of five British citizens kidnapped at the Iraqi Finance Ministry in 2007, Brown defended the country's handling of the negotiations as the bodies of two of the hostages were turned over this weekend, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

"I can assure you that we have left no stone unturned in our efforts to release the hostages, to work with the Iraqi authorities to maintain our vigilance about what needs to be done, and to look at all possible means by which we could free them," Brown said. "For these families I know this is a very difficult time. After two years of waiting and the anxieties of that, they have now been given the worst possible news."

Graeme Moore, the father of still-kidnapped computer consultant Peter Moore, lashed out at the way the British Foreign Office and Foreign Secretary David Miliband have handled the issue.

"They haven't done anything," he told GMTV. "They should have been straight in directing negotiations right from the beginning."