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ANKARA, July 10 (AFP) - 21h29 - A bomb exploded
in a seaside holiday resort in western Turkey
Sunday, leaving at least 20 people injured,
including a number of foreign tourists, officials
said.
The blast, from a low powered and probably home-made
device, ripped apart a dustbin near a bank in the
main square of the Aegean town of Cesme, NTV
television said.
"The explosion was caused by a bomb," said Yusuf
Ziya Goksu, the governor of Izmir province, quoted
by the semi-official Anatolia news agency.
Levent Kidak, Izmir's chief of health services, said
20 people were injured. One person, a woman, was
seriously injured and was taken to a hospital in
Izmir, he said, quoted by Anatolia.
Goksu said two foreign tourists were among the
injured.
Anatolia identified them as Briton John Willoughby,
63, and Russian Alexander Danilik, 44, treated for
minor injuries.
"Cesme is one of Turkey's pearls," Goksu said. "The
one thing we can be thankful for is that there are
no deaths."
A witness, hurt in the blast, told police he had
seen two men in their 20s put a package in a bin
about half an hour before the explosion.
But public television said the explosives had
probably been in a drink can.
Police bomb disposal experts were at the scene and
cordoned off the site, Anatolia said.
The popular Aegean Sea resort of Cesme, just
opposite the Greek island of Chios, has dozens of
hotel complexes visited by both Turkish and foreign
tourists.
A man claiming to speak for Kurdish armed group, the
Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, said it was responsible.
The group threatened to carry out similar attacks in
other tourist resorts, pro-Kurdish news agency
Mesopotamia, which is based in Germany and received
a telephone call from the man, said.
"Our attacks will continue," the agency quoted the
caller as saying.
Turkish police say the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons are
an offshoot of the separatist Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) and has already claimed an attack on
April 30 at the Aegean resort of Kusadasi which is
popular with British tourists.
A police officer was killed and four others were
hurt in that attack.
The group has called on foreigners not to visit
Turkey in a bid to damage the tourism sector which
is Turkey's chief source of foreign exchange,
producing almost 16 billion dollars in 2004 from
some 17.5 million holiday-makers.
The PKK waged a bloody campaign for self-rule in
southeast Turkey between 1984 and 1999, sometimes
targeting tourist centres.
The conflict has claimed more than 36,000 lives and
was the source of accusations of gross human rights
violations on both sides.
The PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire in 1999
after its leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and
tried in Turkey, but it called off the truce last
year, raising tensions in the region.
AFP
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