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Kurdish unrests spreads to Istanbul, death
toll at 15
3.4.2006
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ISTANBUL, April
3, 2006 (AFP) - 11h18 - Kurdish riots that hit
southeast Turkey spread to Istanbul over the weekend
and the countrywide death toll from nearly a week of
unrest climbed to 15 on Monday.
Officials in Diyarbakir, the biggest city in
Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast, said two men --
one aged 78, the other 18 -- wounded in the riots
that began there last Tuesday died overnight at the
Diyarbakir hospital.
Three of the deaths occurred Sunday night in
Istanbul when someone from a group of about 100
masked demonstrators hurled a molotov cocktail at a
crowded city bus in the working-class neighborhood
of Bagcilar.
A panicked elderly woman who threw herself out of
the burning vehicle was struck down and killed by a
passing car and two more bodies were pulled out of
the wreckage of the bus that later crashed into a
truck, media reports said.
A crowd of Bagcilar residents then took to the
streets, chanting slogans against the armed
separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), in whose
favor the rioters had been demonstrating.
Earlier Sunday, a group of about 200 sympathizers of
the PKK -- tagged a terrorist organization by
Turkey, the European Union and the United States --
clashed with riot police at Taksim Square, the heart
of the shopping and entertainment district of
Turkey's biggest city.
The demonstrators sought refuge in the nearby
popular neighborhood of Dolapdere, whose inhabitants
-- mostly Roms -- attacked them with knives, axes
and sticks, chanting nationalist slogans.
A 16th person died in an indirectly related incident
in Istanbul's middle-class Fatih district on Friday,
when a bomb went off in a crowded square in an
attack claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK).
Turkish officials say TAK is a front the PKK uses to
hit soft civilian targets in a bid to avoid
tarnishing its self-proclaimed image of a guerrilla
army that combats only the army and police; the PKK
says it is made up of renegade former PKK militants
over whom it no longer has any control.
The unrest in Istanbul followed most violent
demonstrations in a dozen years to erupt in
Diyarbakir during the funeral of four of 14 PKK
militants killed in armed clashes with the army.
The violence spread to neighboring towns and
provinces, claiming 12 lives, three of them
children.
The last person to die in unrest in the mainly
Kurdish-populated southeast was in Mardin province
on Sunday night, provincial governor Mehmet Kiliçlar
said.
The situation was calm Monday in Diyarbakir, an AFP
correspondent reported, but the unrest spreading to
Istanbul, a sprawling city of more than 12 million
and home to hundreds of thousands of often poor
Kurdish immigrants, raised the specter among
observers of inter-ethnic violence.
"The use by some anti-government parties of ethnic
divisions as a political instrument could degenerate
into violence," warned Jean-François Perouse, a
researcher with a French sociological institute
based in Istanbul.
He was referring to nationalist opposition parties
strongly opposed to any political solution to
Turkey's Kurdish problem.
Perouse added that Istanbul's Kurdish community, the
result of "forced immigration" sparked by violent
fighting between the army and the PKK in southeast
Turkey in the 1990s, is particularly violence-prone
because "it has been economically and politically
marginalized."
Most editorials in the Turkish media Monday agreed
in blaming the violence on the PKK, saying it was
forced to keeping tensions high to ensure its own
survival.
"The PKK, which feels that it has no place in the
political process, is trying to revive the
conditions of the old days of the dirty war,"
commented columnist Ferai Tinc in the mass-selling
daily Hurriyet.
Clashes between government forces and the PKK have
claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984, ravaged
the economy of the already impoverished southeast
and led to the migration -- forced and unforced --
of millions of people.
Kurdish group threatens
Turkey's tourist areas
An armed Kurdish rebel group that has claimed
several deadly bomb attacks in Turkey in the past
threatened Monday to hit tourist targets across the
country.
In a statement posted on the website of the
Europe-based pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, the
Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) called on foreign
tourists to avoid Turkey "or face the consequences."
"Foreign currency brought in by tourists is the
greatest resource of the Turkish state ... in its
attacks against the Kurdish people," the TAK
statement said.
"We declare that we will target hotels, amusement
areas and tourism companies," TAK said.
This is not the first such threat by the shadowy
group, but comes against a backdrop of renewed riots
in mainly Kurdish-populated southeast Turkey and,
more recently, Istanbul, that have so far claimed 13
lives.
Tourism, with revenues of 18.1 billion dollars (14.9
billion euros) in 2005, is a vital sector of the
Turkish economy.
A number of bomb attacks, many of them claimed by
TAK, have hit Turkey since July 2005, the worst of
which killed five people including a Briton and an
Irishwoman last year in the Aegean resort of
Kusadasi.
The latest bombing claimed by TAK killed one and
wounded 11 Friday in Fatih, a middle-class Istanbul
neighborhood.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed
as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European
Union and the United States, claims that it has no
ties with TAK, which it says is made up of renegade
elements it no longer controls.
But Turkish officials insist that TAK is only a
front that allows the PKK to hit soft civilian
targets in its war against the central government,
that has claimed more than 37,000 lives since it
began in 1984.
AFP
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