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TPS-IL on 12 May, 2024
‘Bring Her Home Now’: Trump’s Envoy Blasts Iraq Over Elisabeth Tsurkov’s Captivity
Jerusalem, 5 February, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- Adam Boehler, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for hostages, tweeted a warning to Iraq on Wednesday about Elisabeth Tsurkov, who has been held captive in Iraq for two years.
In Boehler’s first public comments on Tsurkov, he tweeted, “Elizabeth Tsurkov is a Princeton student held hostage in Iraq! The @IraqiPMO consistently made false promises to the prior administration about releasing her. BUT NOW @realDonaldTrump IS ON TO YOU! If @elizrael does not come home NOW than @IraqiPMO is either incapable and should be FiRED or worse COMPLICIT. Bring Elizabeth home now!”
Tsurkov, an Israeli-Russian national and Princeton University academic, disappeared in Baghdad in March 2023 while doing doctoral research after entering the country on her Russian passport. It is widely believed that Tsurkov, now 38, is being held by Kataeb Hezbollah, the largest of Iran’s proxy militias in Iraq.
She was last seen in a propaganda video shared on the Telegram channels of several Iran-backed Iraqi militias in November 2023.
Unconfirmed Middle East reports suggest that the Iraqi militias are interested in releasing Tsurkov in exchange for Hezbollah terrorists captured by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
