Families fleeing the violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul arrive at a checkpoint in outskirts of Arbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region, June 10, 2014.

NATO ambassadors held an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening at Turkey's request to discuss the situation in Iraq, where militants took 80 Turkish citizens hostage,a NATO official said.

"Turkey briefed the other allies on the situation in (the Iraqi city of) Mosul and the hostage-taking of Turkish citizens, including the consul general,'' the official said.

He said the meeting was held for information purposes and not under Article 4 of NATO's founding treaty, which permits a NATO member to ask for consultations with allies when it feels its territorial integrity is threatened.

Sunni insurgents from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) overran the city of Tikrit on Wednesday and closed in on Iraq's biggest oil refinery, making further gains against the Shi'ite-led government.



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Militants from an al Qaeda splinter group are holding 80 Turkish citizens seized in two separate incidents in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said.

