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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 28 (AFP) - 9h18 -
Suspected militants from the rebel Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) have abducted a mayor in
southeastern Turkey, local security sources said
Thursday.
Hasim Akyurek, mayor of the district of Yayladere in
Bingol province, was kidnapped Wednesday afternoon
while he was travelling in a mountainous area in the
region, the sources said.
Akyurek, an ethnic Kurd, belongs to the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The authorities were informed about the incident by
a man who was travelling with the mayor and was
taken together with him but later set free, the
sources said.
The AKP's provincial chairman, Yusuf Coskun, told
the Anatolia news agency that the mayor was first
taken to a nearby village and then to an unknown
location.
There was no immediate word on the motive of the
abduction.
The PKK has stepped up attacks on the army in the
southeast over the past several months, after it
called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June
2004 on grounds that reforms by Ankara to expand
Kurdish freedoms were inadequate.
Earlier this month, the group abducted a Turkish
soldier and was also blamed for a bomb attack in a
popular seaside resort which killed five people
including foreign tourists.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some
37,000 lives since 1984, when the PKK took up arms
against Ankara to fight for Kurdish self-rule.
AFP
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