|
ISTANBUL, July 31 (AFP) - 16h30 - Rebels from
the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Sunday claimed
responsibility for kidnapping the mayor of a town in
southeastern Turkey, rejecting earlier reports he
had been freed.
"The mayor ... of Yedisu, Hasim Akyurek, was
arrested by one of our guerilla teams on July 27.
... This action has been carried out because of the
many complaints and requests by the people regarding
this person," the PKK announced in a statement
quoted by the pro-Kurd MHA news agency in Germany.
Locals had complained about the activities of the
mayor of Yayladere district, which includes Yedisu,
for "working in cooperation with the Turkish
security forces, exercising threats and pressure
harmful to the people", the PKK document said.
Akyurek, a Kurd and member of the ruling Justice and
Development Party (AKP), was abducted on Wednesday
during a visit to a mountainous part of his
constituency.
The PKK denied the mayor had been released, as his
son Zulfu Akyurek announced on Saturday after
receiving an anonymous telephone call. Local AKP
chairman Yusuf Coskun also told Turkish television
that the mayor was freed in a rural zone hundreds of
kilometres from where he was taken prisoner.
"The person in question will be freed in the case
where he is found innocent by an inquiry that will
be carried out into the allegations against him,"
the PKK statement said, adding the hostage was being
held in a zone under PKK control and was in good
health.
The PKK has increased attacks on the Turkish army in
the country's southeast since ending a five-year
unilateral ceasefire in June 2004 on grounds that
Ankara's reforms to expand Kurdish freedoms were
inadequate.
Earlier this month, the group abducted a Turkish
soldier and was also blamed for a bomb attack that
killed five people in a popular seaside resort.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed about
37,000 lives since 1984, when the PKK took up arms
against Ankara to fight for Kurdish self-rule.
AFP
Turkish paramilitary officer killed in clashes
with rebel Kurds
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 31 (AFP) - 11h35 - A
member of the Turkish paramilitary forces in the
predominantly Kurdish region of southeast Turkey was
killed early Sunday in clashes with rebels of the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), local security
sources said.
Another member of the so-called "village guardians"
-- paramilitaries recruited by Ankara to protect
villages in the volatile southeast region -- was
wounded in the fighting in a mountainous region
about 70 kilometersmiles) north of Diyarbakir, the
sources said.
An operation was launched to hunt down the
assailants, the sources added.
The PKK has stepped up violence 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.
The group, blacklisted as a terrorist organization
by the United States and the European Union, was
also blamed for a July 16 bomb attack in a popular
seaside resort in the west which killed five people
including foreign tourists.
The bloody conflict between the PKK and Turkish army
between 1984 and 1999 left some 37,000 people dead.
Top |
® 