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Two soldiers, 12 Kurdish rebels killed in
SE Turkey clash
12.4.2006
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DIYARBAKIR,
Turkey-Kurdistan, April 12, - Two Turkish soldiers
and 12 Kurdish militants were killed during a clash
in a mountainous part of Turkey's troubled
southeast, officials said on Wednesday.
The clash, on Tuesday evening in Sirnak province
near the Iraqi border, coincides with increased
tensions in the mainly Kurdish region after recent
street battles between protesters and security
forces.
The Sirnak governor's office said in a statement
that the militants -- members of the banned
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) -- refused an army
demand to lay down their weapons and opened fire on
the troops, killing two sergeants.
The slain PKK militants included two women, it said.
Troops also discovered and destroyed rebel hideouts
containing explosive materials, the statement said.
Military operations in the area, backed up by
helicopter gunships, are continuing, it added.
Tuesday's clash was the latest in a string of
incidents which has sparked fears of a return to the
kind of large-scale violence that dogged Turkey's
southeast in the 1980s and 1990s.
Last week, security forces killed six PKK members in
the southeast. On Monday, a Turkish soldier was
killed by a remote-controlled mine in the region.
Sixteen people were killed and many more injured
during recent street battles between PKK supporters
and the security forces in Diyarbakir and other
cities across the southeast.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan discussed the
situation with lawmakers from the region on Tuesday
evening, but Turkish media said he rejected a call
for a general amnesty for PKK members.
Erdogan also said he would not talk with leaders of
the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP)
because they would not denounce the PKK as a
terrorist organisation.
The European Union and the United States have put
the PKK on their terrorism blacklist.
But following the recent street violence, the EU,
which Turkey aspires to join, has also stepped up
its calls on Ankara to improve the economic
conditions and cultural rights of its Kurdish
citizens.
The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives
since 1984, when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist
group by Ankara, the European Union and the United
States, took up arms for self-rule in the southeast
(Turkey-Kurdistan).
Reuters
* Eastern Turkey is Northern Kurdistan
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