|
PKK supporters clash with Turkish riot
police
12.3.2007
|
|
|
|
March 12, 2007
ANKARA, -- Supporters of the separatist
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took to the streets
with Molotov cocktails and clashed with police
during protests in towns across Turkey on Sunday,
reports said.
Protestors set fire to rubbish bins and tyres in the
southern town of Mersin, blocking streets in support
of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, the Anatolia
news agency said.
Riot police retaliated with tear gas, charging the
blockade in armoured vehicles and making a number of
arrests, it said.
Masked demonstrators had attacked a bus with a
Molotov cocktail in Mersin on Saturday before being
pushed back by police.
There were no casualties reported.
Police arrested three people in the southeastern
town of Sanliurfa after a group of PKK supporters
threw a Molotov cocktail at a bulldozer.
A group of masked men burnt three cars in an
Istanbul suburb after attacking them with the
home-made incendiaries.
Lawyers earlier this month said that Ocalan was
being slowly poisoned in jail, citing laboratory
tests which indicated abnormally high levels of
toxic substances.
Ocalan, who led a bloody separatist rebellion in
southeast Turkey from 1984 until his capture in
1999, is experiencing breathing and skin problems as
well as severe pain which is interrupting his sleep,
lawyers said.
The Turkish government denied the claims and sent a
team of toxicologists to Ocalan's maximum-security
island prison on Imrali, northwestern Turkey, which
is still to publish its findings.
Sunday's clashes came hours after security forces
killed a Kurdish rebel near the Syrian border and
seven PKK members were found dead in neighbouring
Diyarbakir.
The PKK, which is considered a terrorist
organisation by the Turkish government, the European
Union and the United States, announced a unilateral
ceasefire in October 2006.
Ankara rejected it but the fighting, which has seen
more than 37,000 people killed since the PKK's armed
campaign began in 1984, has reduced since then.
AFP
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to some 20 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
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
|
® 