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DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Aug 5 (AFP) - 15h53 - A
landmine thought to have been planted by Kurdish
rebels exploded on a rural road in eastern Turkey on
Friday shortly after a convoy carrying senior local
officials and lawmakers passed, but there were no
casualties, local security sources said.
The explosion, set off by remote control, occurred
near the village of Servi in Bingol province as the
convoy carrying provincial governor Vehbi Avuc,
three lawmakers from the ruling Justice and
Development Party (AKP) and the local police chief
were returning from a visit to the town of Genc, the
sources said.
The officials were immediately airlifted to Genc by
helicopter while security forces launched an
operation in the region.
The landmine explosion, blamed on the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), came after five
paramilitary troops were killed in a powerful bomb
blast in the southeastern town of Semdinli early
Friday, also thought to have been set off by the
rebels.
Violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast increased
sharply over the past several months after the PKK
called off a five-year unilateral truce in June 2004
on grounds that reforms undertaken by Ankara to
expand Kurdish freedoms were insufficient.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed about
37,000 lives, most of them between 1984 and 1999,
when the PKK waged a bitter campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in the region.
AFP
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