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Week of violence in southeast revives
fears of ethnic conflict in Turkey
2.4.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Kurdistan- Turkey, April 2, 2006 (AFP) -
Ethnic riots in southeast Turkey this week left
eight dead and 250 wounded in the worst urban
violence to hit the region in a decade, reviving
bitter memories of the heyday of the Kurdish
rebellion that has claimed more than 37,000 lives so
far.
Three of the dead were children, one aged only
three, and most of the injured were security forces
in the clashes officials blamed on the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an
armed battle against the central government since
1984.
The brunt of the violence was in this city of
550,000, the biggest in Turkey's mainly
Kurdish-populated southeast, with lesser incidents
shaking the nearby city of Batman.
More than 300 rioters were arrested during the
incidents Ankara has partly blamed on the
Denmark-based Kurdish-language Roj TV channel, which
according to officials recently broadcast appeals
for civil disobedience and for shops here to close
down.
Shopkeepers who ignored the call saw their
businesses ransacked by rioters who set fire to
banks, threw up barricades and attacked reporters.
The unrest began Tuesday when thousands of
demonstrators confronted security forces after the
funeral here of four of 14 alleged PKK militants
killed two days previously in a gunbattle with
Turkish army troops.
The funerals rapidly turned into violent
demonstrations of support for the PKK and its jailed
leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in the most intense
protests here since the mid-1990s, when the rebel
group was at its most active in combatting central
government forces for Kurdish independence.
Funerals of Kurdish militants killed in clashes with
the army often turn into pro-PKK demonstrations and
media reports that seven more were killed Friday in
a gunbattle near Silopi, on the border with Iraq,
raised fears of renewed unrest.
Violence in the area abated after Ocalan's capture
in Kenya in 1999, when the PKK -- considered a
terror group by Turkey, the United States and the
European Union -- proclaimed a unilateral truce that
lasted for five years.
Many of its armed militants then found refuge in the
mountains of northern Iraq and officials say they
have been regularly infiltrating back into Turkey
since the end of the truce in June 2004.
Violence has mounted incessantly since, despite a
spate of reforms by Ankara to improve the lot of the
country's approximately 12 million Kurds, mostly in
a bid to ease its attempt to join the EU with which
it launched membership talks in October.
Contrary to past practice, police here appeared to
avoid any use of disproportionate force against pro-PKK
demonstrators in an apparent bid to keep relations
on an even keel with the EU, already leery at the
prospect of admitting a relatively poor Muslim
nation of 70 million in its ranks.
The situation here was relatively calm on Friday,
with many shops reopening as highly visible police,
gendarmerie and army units patrolled the city.
Diyarbakir's popular Kurdish Mayor Osman Baydemir,
under a legal probe since Thursday on charges of
making pro-PKK statements, appealed for calm on
Friday.
"I call on all citizens to cease their actions and
go back home," he appealed before journalists.
On Thursday night, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said "no illegal acts will be tolerated" and
ruled out any dialogue with the PKK -- a key demand
of PKK sympathisers.
Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu, in town for a
first-hand look at the situation, vowed that "those
who provoke these incidenrs will be captured and
exposed" before being brought to trial.
"These acts target democracy and stability" in
Turkey, he said.
The media repeated calls Friday on the government to
stand firm against what it called "provocations" by
the PKK.
"A country that is proceeding on the path to EU
membership and courageously implementing reforms
should not bow to what is happening," commented an
editorialist in the English-language Turkish Daily
News.
AFP
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