ANKARA, Turkey - The mother of a Turkish laborer released Friday after a month held hostage by Iraqi militants was joyfully cooking her son's favorite meal. His father was preparing to sacrifice a sheep in thanks to God.

The 26-year-old man and a co-worker were freed after their employer, the Turkish company Kayteks, agreed to stop supplying the U.S. military in Iraq with air conditioners, Turkish authorities said.

Also Friday, Pakistan announced that Iraqi insurgents freed a Pakistani hostage they had threatened to behead unless Islamabad closed its embassy in Iraq and ordered all its citizens home.

Kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq intensified in recent weeks, along with insurgent attacks, in the run-up to Monday's transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government. More than 40 people have been abducted in Iraq since April. Several have been killed but many released or freed.

The Pakistani, Amjad Hafeez, is a driver for an American company doing business with U.S. forces. He told his family he had already reached Kuwait, Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, told the Associated Press in Islamabad.

He gave no details on Hafeez's release, saying only that Pakistani diplomats played an important role. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had refused the kidnappers' demands and told them to release Hafeez, whom he called a "better Muslim" than they.

Last Sunday, the Arab television broadcast a tape showing Hafeez held by masked gunmen who threatened to behead him unless Americans freed prisoners from four Iraq jails. They did not say whether they were affiliated with any group.

"He is well, and I am thankful to God Almighty and all those who helped me to secure the release of my son," Hafeez's mother, Saeeda Jan, told AP. "I am also thankful to those who freed him."

The kidnapping of Hafeez angered many in Pakistan, who said that killing a fellow Muslim would not help the insurgents' cause. The abductions of Turks also drew criticism within the Muslim world.

The two Turkish hostages released Friday, air conditioner technicians Murat Kizil and Soner Sercali, were reported missing June 1. A group calling itself the Mujahadeen Brigade had captured them.

Kizil's father said he called at noon Friday from the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad to say he was fine.

"We're so happy. We're expecting him on Saturday," Osman Kizil by telephone from the southern Turkish city of Adana.

The two Turks were on their way to Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, to pick up their bags before crossing the border into southeastern Turkey.

"I am cooking for him. He likes rice the most," said his joyful mother, Veziha. "I cried a lot. Thank God I saw this day."

Thousands of Turks work as truck drivers or contractors in Iraq.

Three other Turks abducted by insurgents were freed Tuesday; Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had said his group was behind their kidnapping. His followers beheaded American businessman Nicholas Berg and South Korean translator Kim Sun-Il.

Editor's note: Associated Press writers Ravi Nessman in Baghdad, Iraq, and Munir Ahmad in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.