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ANKARA, Aug 28 (AFP) - 22h00 - A young man died
in hospital after being shot during clashes Sunday,
in southeastern Turkey, between police and
demonstrators trying to claim the bodies of six
Kurdish separatist rebels killed in fighting earlier
this week, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The clashes occurred in the city of Batman when the
demonstrators, from the main Kurdish party DEHAP and
two other local civic bodies, ignored police orders
to disperse and began marching towards the hospital
where the bodies of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) rebels were being kept, the report said.
When the group staged a sit-in near the hospital,
police used water cannons and pepper gas against the
protestors, who retaliated by pelting officers with
stones.
Several demonstrators were arrested during the clash
with police, who fired warning shots into the air.
Local sources said there were also claims that some
of the demonstrators had used firearms.
A 25-year-old man, identified by the agency as Hasan
Is, died in hospital from a gunshot wound sustained
during the fighting with the police but it was not
immediately clear who had shot him.
The six PKK rebels, whose bodies were claimed by
demonstrators, were killed during three days of
fighting with Turkish security forces between August
25 and 27 near the town of Besiri in the province of
Batman, bearing the same name as the city.
Violence has sharply increased in Turkey's mainly
Kurdish southeast since June 2004 when the PKK
called off a five-year unilateral truce on the
grounds that government moves to expand the rights
of the Kurdish population were insufficient.
The PKK's political wing, KONGRA-GEL, announced a
fresh one-month unilateral ceasefire on August 19
but underlined that the rebels would continue to
defend themselves in the face of Turkish military
operations.
KONGRA-GEL said it was encouraged to announce the
truce following a landmark pledge by Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the month
to resolve the conflict with "more democracy".
The Turkish army has brushed aside the rebels'
truce, vowing to press ahead with the struggle to
crush the PKK, which is considered a terrorist
organisation by Turkey, the United States and the
European Union.
The conflict with the rebels has claimed some 37,000
lives since 1984, the year PKK militants first took
up arms in search of self-rule in Turkey's mainly
Kurdish southeast.
AFP
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