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TEHRAN, April 10,
2006 (AFP) - Iranian police have arrested
seven members of a banned Kurdish rebel group
operating close to the Islamic republic's border
with Turkey, a press report said Monday.
"We have arrested seven members of the illegal Pejak
group who had pivotal role in urban unrest," West
Azerbaijan province police chief, Hasan Karami, told
the Khorasan daily.
He said that during the Iranian New Year holidays in
late March, Pejak members killed a policeman and two
members of the Basij volunteer militia.
Iran says Pejak is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a 15-year
insurgency against Ankara for self rule in the
Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.
Reports have said at least 120 Iranian police were
killed, and scores injured in major insurgent
attacks by Kurds last year, notably by Pejak.
Tehran and Ankara are linked by an accord calling on
Iran to fight the PKK and for Turkey to fight the
People's Mujahedeen, an outlawed armed Iranian
opposition group based in Iraq.
Iran has pointed the finger at international forces
in Iraq for the recent unrest in Kurdish and Arab
communities in its southwestern provinces that
border Iraq.
AFP
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