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ANKARA, Turkey — More than 1,000 Turkish troops
backed by helicopter gunships kept up their search
Wednesday for a soldier kidnapped by separatist
Kurdish rebels in the rugged mountains of eastern
Turkey, as violence spiraled in the predominantly
Kurdish region.
As the troops combed the mountains of Tunceli
province for Pvt. Coskun Kirandi, who was seized
Monday, a spokesman for the rebel group known as the
Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, declared that the
soldier would be treated as "a prisoner of war."
Elsewhere in eastern Turkey, the rebels lobbed
rocket-propelled grenades at an infantry battalion's
base in the eastern town of Digor near the border
with Armenia. Digor Mayor Hikmet Ozyunlu said loud
explosions were heard in the town, followed by
rounds of machine-gun fire.
"Telephone lines were cut," Ozyunlu told the
semiofficial Anatolian news agency. "The people
panicked."
In the nearby province of Bingol, meanwhile, a
Turkish soldier was injured when his armored
personnel carrier hit a land mine planted by the
rebels.
About 100 rebels and soldiers have been killed in
the east since April, when clashes between the two
sides markedly intensified 10 months after the PKK
ended a unilateral truce. The rebels said they had
resumed the attacks because of the Ankara
government's refusal to negotiate a lasting peace.
"We say [to Ankara]: 'Let us start talks to find a
solution. Send us an official for discussions,' "
Murat Karayilan, a PKK military commander, said in
remarks quoted on the website of the pro-Kurdish MHA
news agency late last month.
Karayilan, citing U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld's recent acknowledgment that American
officials had held talks with insurgents in
neighboring Iraq, suggested that Ankara follow
Washington's example.
"Look at the United States," Karayilan said. "It
said it is holding talks even with organizations and
people fighting against it with all means and no
rules."
Turkey categorically rules out any talks with the
PKK, which it labels a terrorist organization.
The rebels waged a 15-year armed campaign to
establish an independent state for Turkey's
estimated 14 million Kurds. Nearly 40,000 people,
mostly Kurds, died in the rebellion. More than 1
million Kurdish villagers were forcibly displaced by
the Turkish army in its campaign against the rebels.
The fighting stopped for the most part when the
group declared a cease-fire after its leader,
Abdullah Ocalan, was captured by Turkish authorities
in 1999.
The rebels' goal in the renewed fighting "is on the
one hand to prove that they are still a force to
contend with; on the other it is to blackmail the
government into issuing an amnesty for all PKK
rebels, including their leaders," said Hasim Hasimi,
a moderate Kurdish politician.
"Their strategy is bound to backfire," Hasimi
predicted, "and will only serve to further polarize
Turks and Kurds."
With the renewed fighting, the rebels promised early
this month to carry their battle outside the
mountains of eastern Turkey to the country's seaside
holiday resorts in a bid to torpedo the country's
multibillion-dollar tourism industry.
At least 20 people, including a British tourist,
were wounded Sunday when a bomb planted by the
Kurdish rebels exploded in the Aegean coastal town
of Cesme.
European Union diplomats have expressed concerns
that the violence could undermine Turkey's efforts
to join the 25-member bloc, particularly if the
military uses the brutal methods it employed
throughout the 1990s to combat the rebels.
Turkey is scheduled to begin membership negotiations
with the EU on Oct. 3.
Some EU diplomats warn that if the human rights
situation deteriorates, those talks could be
delayed.
www.latimes.com
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