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Turk media says security forces maybe
behind bomb
11.11.2005
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ANKARA, Nov 11
(Reuters) - Turkish media said on Friday members of
Turkey's security forces may have been involved in
the bombing of a bookstore in the country's troubled
southeast which almost led to their lynching by an
angry crowd.
Wednesday's bomb blast in the town of Semdinli near
the Iraqi border on Wednesday killed one person and
a second was shot dead amid two days of violent
protests by local people triggered by the explosion.
"A dark incident," said the top-selling Hurriyet
daily in a banner headline, saying suspicions that
the security forces were acting outside the law had
rattled the Turkish state.
Justice Minister Cemil Cicek vowed to uncover what
exactly had happened but urged Turks to await the
results of an official investigation.
"We have the political determination to deal with
this issue," Cicek said in televised remarks.
Newspapers said three suspects detained by police
after their near-lynching had turned out to be
intelligence agents of the gendarmerie, a
paramilitary body under civilian supervision which
is charged with looking after security in rural
areas.
The men were quoted as saying they had been passing
through the town by chance when the explosion had
occurred and the crowd turned on them.
But the newspapers said police had found in the
men's car three Kalashnikov assault rifles, two
grenades, a detailed map of the province and a map
pinpointing the bombed bookstore.
A national police spokesman in the capital Ankara
said on Friday police were still holding one suspect
over the incident and were examining weapons found
at the scene.
Spokesman Ismail Caliskan gave no further details
but he urged local citizens not to take the law into
their own hands.
"We do not want our public to be provoked. We want
them to show commonsense and await the results of
the probe," he said.
On Thursday, demonstrators set fire to a police
checkpoint, erected barricades and pulled down
powerlines in Semdinli in protest against the
bombing.
Tensions have been rising steadily in Turkey's
impoverished southeast since the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) called off a six-year unilateral
ceasefire last year and resumed its attacks on
security and civilian targets.
Last week, a PKK member was killed when a mine he
was planting exploded in the eastern province of
Tunceli.
On Friday, a bomb exploded under the parked car of a
local prosecutor in the town of Silopi near the
Iraqi border. The blast caused a lot of damage but
nobody was hurt, security officials said.
Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of more than
30,000 people since the group began its armed
struggle for an independent Kurdish homeland in
southeast Turkey in 1984.
The European Union, which Turkey aspires to join,
has urged Ankara to do more to develop the economy
of the southeast but it has also put the PKK on its
terrorism blacklist.
Reuters
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