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Two Kurdish rebels killed, 8 Turkish villagers
kidnapped
4.8.2007 |
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August
4, 2007
Diyarbakir, Kurdish Southeastern region of
Turkey, -- Two Kurdish rebels were killed and two
soldiers injured in a large-scale crackdown on the
separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in eastern
Turkey, security sources said Friday.
The rebels were killed late Thursday in the
mountainous province of Tunceli, where clashes since
Wednesday have claimed the lives of six other PKK
militants and three soldiers.
About 1,500 members of the army's special forces
were participating in the clampdown on the PKK in
the region, backed by helicopter gunships, local
officials said.
The two soldiers were wounded when rebels detonated
a remote-control landmine.
Provincial governor of Van said that the PKK Members
kidnapped eight villagers in mainly Kurdish
southeast Turkey on Friday near the border with
Iran.
About 25 PKK members seized the villagers and took
them away in the direction of the Iranian border,
the governor said.
The kidnapping coincided with a major military
build-up in southeast Turkey, where 13 people have
died in armed clashes in the past few days.
The provincial governor said an investigation had
been launched into the kidnappings.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by
Ankara and much of the international community,
notably stepped up attacks in the east and the
southeast this year.
The army has reinforced its units in the region and
amassed troops on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan,
where believed the militants take refuge.
The PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
Kurdish-majority region in 1984. The conflict has
claimed more than 37,000 lives.
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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