|
Radical Kurdish militants claim Turkish
resort blast: report
27.6.2006
|
|
|
|
ANKARA, June 27,
2006 (AFP) , -- A radical Kurdish group claimed a
weekend explosion that killed four people at a
tourist site in southern Turkey, a Kurdish news
agency reported Tuesday.
An Istanbul newspaper said security cameras filmed
the suspected bombers, but local officials contacted
by AFP either refused to comment or said the
explosion in the town of Manavgat was due to a
faulty gas canister.
Four people -- a Norwegian, a Hungarian, a Russian
and a Turk -- were killed and 25 others injured in
the blast on Sunday at the Manavgat waterfalls, a
tourist attraction 60 kilometres (38 miles) east of
Antalya, Turkey's biggest Mediterrean resort city.
The Firat news agency said on its website that an
anonymous caller claimed the blast for the Kurdistan
Freedom Falcons (TAK) and warned of more attacks
against tourism targets.
"We have warned tourists to leave Turkey several
times, we are warning them again," Firat quoted the
caller as saying. "One cannot holiday in a place
where there is war and conflict."
The popular daily Vatan said security cameras
recorded three people, one of them a woman, placing
a package inside a trash bin at the site about 20
minutes before the explosion.
Police refused to comment on the report.
Turkish officials say TAK is a front for the
separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in its
attacks on civilian targets; the PKK claims TAK is a
splinter group over which it has no control.
TAK has claimed responsibility for several deadly
bomb attacks in urban centers across Turkey since
last year, the worst of them in the Aegean resort of
Kusadasi, in which five people, including an
Englishwoman and an Irish teenager, died in July
2005.
More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984
when the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by
Turkey, the United States and the European Union,
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast.
Tensions have escalated in the region since June
2004 when the group called off a five-year
unilateral ceasefire.
AFP
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 