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Turkey: Two killed in blast in eastern
Kurdish
city
9.3.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan-Turkey, March 9, - Two people were killed
and 12 wounded in an explosion on Thursday in the
eastern Turkish city of Van (Kurdistan-Turkey) ,
police said.
The state Anatolian news agency said the blast might
have been caused by a suicide bomber, but this
report could not immediately be confirmed.
Police said the blast occurred near the office of
the Van governor. They said an investigation was
underway into the cause of the explosion but gave no
further information.
Tensions have recently been running high in Van, a
mainly Kurdish city near the Iranian border.
A Van-based state prosecutor triggered a crisis this
week between Turkey's powerful military and the
civilian authorities by accusing a top general of
abusing his position and setting up an illegal group
he said was trying to foment unrest in the Kurdish
southeast in order to harm Ankara's EU membership
bid.
His claims have outraged the military and
embarrassed the government, which has distanced
itself from the prosecutor's allegations and
defended General Yasar Buyukanit, who heads Turkey's
land forces.
Buyukanit, tipped to become the next chief of the
military general staff in August when incumbent
Hilmi Ozkok is due to retire, served in southeast
Turkey between 1997 and 2000.
Some 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when
the separatist Kurdish rebels PKK began an armed
campaign against the Ankara government for Self-Rule
in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast
(Kurdistan-Turkey).
The violence is at a much lower intensity now than
at the height of the conflict in the 1980s and
1990s. But a series of bomb blasts in the region in
recent months has stirred concern about a return to
increased violence.
The European Union, which began membership talks
with Turkey last October, has urged Ankara to do
more to relieve poverty in the southeast and also to
bolster the cultural rights of its large Kurdish
population.
Reuters
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