Six killed in fresh violence in southeast Turkey (AFP) Updated: 2005-12-10 09:43
Four Turkish soldiers and two Kurdish guerrillas were killed in a rebel
attack on a military unit, and a series of blasts went off in southeast Turkey,
officials said, in the latest wave of mounting violence in the mainly Kurdish
region.
Two members of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were shot dead in
clashes that erupted after the attack on the army outpost near the town of
Guclukonak, in Sirnak province, which borders Iraq and Syria.
Security officials said the soldiers, on guard duty outside the post, were
attacked shortly after midnight with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades
and rifles.
The army launched an operation with air cover against the PKK in the area,
they said.
Education Minister Huseyin Celik, who was visiting the region, confirmed the
deaths of the four soldiers.
He was speaking at the opening ceremony of a school in Sirnak's Idil town as
part of government efforts to boost education in a region plagued by chronic
poverty and years of conflict between the army and the PKK.
"We came here to open a school... and we are very upset at such news," Celik
was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. "We condemn terrorism."
Friday evening, three blasts went off almost simultaneously outside shops at
three separate locations in the town of Silopi, at the Iraqi border, local
police told AFP.
The semi-official Anatolia said one person was wounded, while the pro-Kurdish
Firat news agency reported several injured.
Two explosions occurred simultaneously at around 8:30 pm (1830 GMT), while
the third followed in about 15 minutes, Firat said.
The blasts followed a police operation in Silopi earlier this week in which
two suspected Kurdish rebels and seven accomplices were detained on suspicion
that they were planning "simultaneous sensational bombings/armed attacks,"
according to an official statement.
The security forces also seized weapons and about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of
plastic explosives in the homes of the suspects and a member of Silopi's
township council, identified by the media as the town's Kurdish deputy mayor
Abdulaziz Coban who remained at large and was wanted by the police.
Unrest in the southeast rose noticeably this year after the PKK called off a
five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.
Tensions escalated last month with a wave of violent protests over
allegations that members of the security forces were involved in a bomb attack
on a bookstore owned by a former Kurdish guerrilla in a town in Hakkari
province, which borders Sirnak.
The attack killed one person and the riots that followed claimed another five
lives, rattling the Ankara government at a time when it is under pressure to
demonstrate its respect for democracy and the rule of law in its bid to join the
EU.
The bombing raised questions over whether Turkey has suceeded in purging
rogue elements from the security forces accused of summary executions in the
southeast during the early 1990s, the peak years of the PKK rebellion.
The EU has said the investigation into the attacks will be a test for the
rule of law in Turkey.
Ankara opened membership talks with Brussels on October 4 with a view to
joining the bloc in a decade.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984, when
the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the region.
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