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Turkey blames Kurdish suicide bomber for Ankara
attack
23.5.2007 |
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May
23, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey ,-- A Turkish official said
Wednesday that a suicide bomber suspected of
belonging to a separatist Kurdish rebel group was
behind a powerful explosion in downtown Ankara that
killed six other people.
Ankara Governor Kemal Onal told reporters that
police found body parts belonging to a 28-year-old
man with a criminal record who was not listed among
those killed and injured in Tuesday's blast.
The blast ripped through the busy commercial
district of Ulus during the evening rush hour,
injuring 100 people, among them eight Pakistani
nationals in town to attend an international defence
industry fair.
Speaking after a meeting of the country's top
anti-terror body, Onal said the suspect, identified
as Guven Akkus, carried out the attack with plastic
explosives wrapped around his body.
"The type of explosive used and the method of the
attack tally with those of the separatist terror
organization", Onal said, employing the official
jargon for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The PKK has in the past used suicide bombers in its
bloody, 22-year campaign for self-rule in Turkey's
mainly Kurdish southeast.
However police are yet to determine whether Akkus,
who has an arrest record and served two years in
jail, was a PKK member, Onal said.
"Our findings so far show that he acted alone, but
we are pursuing the investigation," he said.
Speaking shortly before the governor, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack came
as the Board for Struggle Against Terrorism
evaluated reports that the PKK could launch bomb
attacks.
"The board, which held one of its routine meetings
three days ago, was concerned that the terrorist
organization might carry out such attacks in major
cities and tourist regions as we enter summer,"
Erdogan told a forum of the influential TUSIAD
businesmen's association in Istanbul.
Other than attacks on security forces in southeast
Turkey, Kurdish militants are also blamed for a
series of bomb attacks nationwide.
A group calling itself the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons
(TAK) claimed responsibility for a string of
bombings against civilian targets last year and
threatened to continue hitting the tourism sector,
which attracts millions of holidaymakers every year.
Turkish officials say TAK is a front for PKK attacks
on civilian targets; the PKK claims TAK is a
splinter group over which it has no control.
The Turkish army fighting the PKK regularly seizes
large amounts of plastic explosives it says the
militants bring across the border into Turkey from
their bases in northern Iraq.
The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join,
on Wednesday condemned the "horrible and cowardly
attack".
"The European Commission expresses its solidarity
with Turkey in its efforts to fight terrorism, which
is a common concern for the EU and Turkey," EU
Enlargament Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a
statement in Brussels.
Turkish newspapers Wednesday raised the possibility
that army chief Yasar Buyukanit may have been
targeted by the attack, which occurred shortly
before the start of an official reception at a
museum a few hundred yards away for delegations from
48 countries attending the armaments fair.
Buyukanit and top military commanders would have
used the road where the blast occurred to arrive at
the dinner at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
they said.
More than 37,000 Turkish soldiers and PKK guerrillas
have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up
arms for self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Turkey has long pressed the United States and Iraq
to stamp out PKK rebel bases in northern Iraq and
has threatened a crossborder operation to do so
itself if there is no action from Washington and
Baghdad.
The explosion came as Turkey prepares for early
general elections scheduled for July 22 to defuse a
political crisis between secular and Islamist forces
over who the country's next president should be.
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 over 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 over 25 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.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
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
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