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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 30 (AFP) - 20h54 - The
son of a mayor in southeastern Turkey, kidnapped by
a group suspected of being members of the rebel
Kurdistan Workers Party, was told Saturday his
father had been freed, local sources said.
Hasim Akyurek, mayor of the district of Yayladere in
Bingol province, was seized Wednesday afternoon
while he was travelling in a mountainous area in the
region.
Akyurek, an ethnic Kurd, belongs to the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP).
His son was telephoned Saturday to be told Akyurek
had been freed but the caller gave no indication as
to his identity or his membership of any group.
Turkish television quoted local AKP chairman Yusuf
Coskun as saying that Akyurek had been freed in a
rural area several hundred kilometres west of the
place where he had been seized.
There was no confirmation from the authorities
there.
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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