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ANKARA, July 21 (AFP) - 11h03 - Turkey is
planning to amend its anti-terror law in a bid to
strengthen its hand against Kurdish rebels who have
stepped up anti-government violence, Justice
Minister Cemil Cicek said in a newspaper interview
published Thursday.
"The preparations are in the final stage," Cicek
told the daily Vatan. "We will send the draft to
parliament as soon as it reconvenes" on Octgober 1
after the summer recess.
Ankara is alarmed at mounting unrest in the
country's mainly Kurdish southeast where the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a
terrorist group by the United States and the
European Union, has intensified its attacks on the
army after calling off a five-year unilateral
ceasefire in June 2004.
Kurdish militants have also targeted civilians:
earlier this month they blew up a train, killing
five, and bombed a seaside resort, leaving 20 people
injured.
At another resort, five people including two foreign
tourists were killed Saturday in a bomb attack in
which Kurdish militants are the primary suspect
although the PKK denied involvement.
The new measures, Cicek said, will not curb the
expanded individual freedoms and human rights
introduced over the past several years as part of
Turkey's efforts to meet the democracy norms of the
EU, which it is seeking to join.
Turkey's anti-terror law was only recently purged
from infamous restrictions on the press and the
freedom of speech as part of the EU-inspired
reforms.
Cicek told Vatan that EU countries themselves were
reviewing their anti-terror legislation.
"We are examining the new measures taken up in Spain
and Britain in the wake of the al-Qaeda attacks
there," he said. "We will also introduce some
measures in that framework."
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed late
Wednesday that Ankara was also planning to set up a
government agency specializing in terrorism-related
issues.
The army has called for a new institution, attached
to Erdogan, that would determine strategies and
coordinate the combat against terrorism.
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 southeast.
At least 105 soldiers and 37 civilians have died in
PKK-related violence over the past year, according
to army figures released Tuesday, which did not give
the PKK death toll.
Turkey has also been the target of local extremists
linked with the al-Qaeda network. Two twin suicide
bombings in Istanbul in 2003 killed 63 people and
injured about 750 others.
Armed extreme-left groups have also attacked
government targets.
AFP
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