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Turkey arrests 10 in Kurdish rebel crackdown
27.5.2007 |
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May
27, 2007
ISTANBUL, -- Police have arrested 10 people,
among them a suspected suicide bomber, in Turkey's
biggest city Istanbul in three operations targeting
the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a
police statement said Saturday.
Four of those arrested were PKK members sent to
Istanbul to carry out attacks, while the rest were
couriers or sympathisers of the group, the statement
said.
One of the suspects was a 35-year-old woman who was
preparing for a suicide bomb attack, it said.
Police determined that three other suspects had been
involved in the bombing last year of an Internet
cafe in Istanbul which killed one person and injured
16 others, including seven policemen, the statement
added.
The sweep in Istanbul follows a suicide bomb attack
in the capital Ankara Tuesday which killed six
people and injured more than 100.
Turkish officials said the method of the attack and
the explosives used tallied with the past practices
of the PKK, but the rebel group denied any
involvement with the explosion.
Meanwhile two Turkish soldiers were wounded in
eastern Turkey Saturday in a landmine explosion
blamed on separatist Kurdish rebels, the army said
in a statement.
The explosion occurred during a security sweep on
mountainous terrain in Tunceli province, said the
general staff said in a statement on its Internet
site.
The mine was planted by the "terrorist
organization", it added, using the official jargon
for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The rebels are also suspected of having planted a
mine which exploded Thursday near the
Iraqi-Kurdistan border.
The death toll from the explosion rose to seven
soldiers when one of the 10 wounded died at an
Ankara hospital, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The sweep in Istanbul follows a suicide bomb attack
in the capital Ankara on Tuesday which killed six
people and injured more than 100.
Turkish officials said the method of the attack and
the explosives used tallied with past practices of
the PKK, but the rebel group has denied any
involvement.
The PKK is also believed to be behind two landmine
attacks in eastern Turkey on Friday, one of which
targeted the convoy of a senior police official and
the other derailed a freight train. No one was
injured in these attacks.
More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984
when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by
Ankara and much of the international community,
picked up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly
Kurdish southeast.
Turkey charges that thousands of PKK rebels have
found refuge in Kurdistan (northern Iraq) where they
are able to obtain weapons and explosives for
attacks on Turkish targets across the border.
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.
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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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