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TUNCELI, Turkey, May 11 (Reuters) - Turkish
security forces killed three Kurdish militants in
eastern Turkey on Wednesday, officials said, one day
before Europe's human rights court rules on an
appeal by the rebel group's leader.
The head of the military's land forces on Wednesday
also warned the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
was planning attacks in rural or urban centres after
a large number of rebels smuggled explosives into
Turkey from northern Iraq.
Violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast has been on
the rise since the PKK called off its unilateral
ceasefire last year, threatening the impoverished
region's tenuous peace.
The military confronted a large PKK group and killed
three rebels in the mountainous eastern province of
Tunceli early on Wednesday, a military official
said.
Fighting was continuing, with as many as 8,000
Turkish soldiers backed by helicopter gunships
pursuing some 300 PKK rebels and another 50 members
of the Maoist Communist Party (MKP), who have taken
up arms alongside the PKK in the past.
"We have stepped up operations in Tunceli after a
large number of PKK entered the region. We are
sending more units to the area," the official said.
Emotions are running high in Turkey before the
European Court of Human Rights rules on Thursday on
an appeal by PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, now serving
a life sentence for treason.
Ocalan argues his 1999 trial and his treatment in a
remote island prison, where he is the sole inmate,
contravene human rights conventions. If the
Strasbourg court rules in his favour, Ocalan could
face a retrial in Turkey, an EU candidate.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 in a campaign to
establish an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish
southeast. More than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds,
have been killed in the fighting.
The conflict subsided with Ocalan's capture, when he
ordered followers to withdraw from Turkey. Some
5,000 rebels are now based in northern Iraq.
Land forces commander Yasar Buyukanit said the PKK
had returned to its former strength.
"The organisation is at the same level it was when
its separatist leader was apprehended in 1999,"
Buyukanit told reporters in the southeastern city of
Diyarbakir.
"They are crossing from northern Iraq with very
powerful C-4 explosives. Rural or urban areas could
become dangerous in the coming days."
The conflict has mainly been limited to the villages
or mountainous areas of the southeast, although
there have been sporadic attacks in western cities.
A would-be suicide bomber who identified herself as
a PKK militant was detained in the biggest
southeastern city of Diyarbakir last week. A group
linked to the PKK claimed responsibility for an
April 30 bomb attack that killed a police officer in
the western resort town of Kusadadsi.
Reuters
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