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TEHRAN, March 29
(Reuters) - Three members of Iran's Revolutionary
Guards were killed in a clash with Kurdish
separatists in the country's restive western
borderlands, Iran's student news agency ISNA said on
Wednesday.
The Revolutionary Guard "agents" were killed in
fighting on Tuesday with a Kurdish group called PJAK.
Their bodies were transferred from the border to the
nearby city of Salmas, the report said.
Iranian officials were not immediately available for
comment. Iran's Revolutionary Guards are an
ideologically driven branch of the country's armed
forces.
Security experts say PJAK is an Iranian wing of the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) whose separatist
struggle regained momentum in southeastern Turkey
after it called off a unilateral ceasefire in the
summer of 2004.
The PKK Web site said seven Iranian soldiers were
killed and 11 injured in a clash with PKK
guerrillas. It said Iranian forces launched an
operation against the rebels on March 25 in an area
it identified as Kelares, near the border between
Iran and Turkey. It said there were no PKK
casualties.
It was not immediately clear if the two reports were
referring to the same incident.
Iran's western cities, home of the country's Kurdish
minority, have simmered with tension since July when
riots erupted in a city in the area. There have been
several civilian and police deaths in violence since
then.
Iranian officials have said the violence was not
ethnically motivated but Kurdish leaders say
Tehran's discriminatory treatment of their people is
stirring unrest.
Kurds consist 6 million of Iran's 67 million
population, many of whom live in the mountainous
northwest bordering Iraq and Turkey, also home of
Kurdish minorities.
Reuters
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