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Car bomb kills five in Turkey's main
Kurdish city of Diyarbakir
4.1.2008
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January 4, 2008
DIYARBAKIR, Kurdish Southeastern region of
Turkey, --- A powerful car bomb exploded Thursday
near a military base in Diyarbakir, Turkey's main
Kurd-dominated city, killing five people and
wounding about 70, officials said.
The bomb went off on a road in the city centre, some
100 metres (yards) from a military base and billets,
as an army vehicle carrying some 50 soldiers was
passing, Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu told reporters.
There was no claim of responsibility for the blast
but immediate suspicion fell on the separatist
Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has
carried out a number of previous attacks in the area
in recent years.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the US
embassy in Ankara condemned the blast as a
"terrorist act."
The PKK, listed as a "terrorist" group by Ankara, US
and EU, has threatened retaliation following Turkish
air strikes on its bases in Kurdistan region
'northern Iraq' last month.
Iraqi Kurdistan politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq',www.ekurd.net
Turkey fears this could
fan separatism among its own large Kurdish
population in southeast Turkey.
The blast destroyed the military vehicle and five
cars and ignited a large blaze that was later
extinguished by firefighters.
Two of the five victims were young -- one a high
school girl arriving for evening classes in a nearby
private school, the other a boy selling tissues in
the streets, officials said.
Those hurt included about 30 soldiers as well as
civilians and teenage students. Several of them
suffered serious injuries.
The car bomb was set off by remote control, Governor
Mutlu said, as bomb experts combed the scene and
police collected tapes from the security cameras of
nearby shops.
A teacher at the private school training pupils for
university exams spoke of a "great disaster"www.ekurd.net
being avoided as about
500 students were set to leave the building at the
end of classes.
"There was a loud bang and the lights went off. We
evacuated the students from the back door," Nesim
Cecen told AFP.
"Had it happened 10 minutes later, it would have
been a great disaster as all the children would have
been in the street," he said.
Another witness, Cabir Ocal, who was shopping at the
site of the bombing described his narrow escape.
"I had just returned to my workplace when it went
off," he said. "The windows of the building and
their frames were all shattered."
Police said they were looking for two people that
witnesses had seen fleeing the scene.
"Terrorism has reared its ugly head again. But these
incidents will not affect our determination to fight
terrorism both at home and abroad," Erdogan said in
Ankara.
The US embassy condemned the blast as "a horrible
example of the meaningless tragedies caused by
terrorism" and vowed "determination to stand by
Turkey in the struggle against all kinds of
terrorism."
The blast came as the Turkish army, aided by US
intelligence assistance, stepped up action against
Turkey's PKK rebels who use neighbouring Iraqi
Kurdistan as a springboard for attacks across the
frontier in Turkey.
The military has confirmed three air strikes on PKK
positions in northern Iraq since December 16, in
addition to a cross-border land operation to stop a
group of rebels from infiltrating Turkey.
Local Iraqi officials have reported two other air
raids.
At least 150 militants have been killed and more
than 200 PKK positions destroyed in the raids so
far, according to the Turkish military.
PKK rebels have been blamed for several bomb attacks
in Diyarbakir and other major cities in the recent
past.
Seven people were injured in June when a bomb,
blamed on the PKK, exploded near a bus stop in
central Diyarbakir.
In 2006, 10 people, including seven children, were
killed and 14 injured in a bomb blast at a crowded
city park, which officials also blamed on the PKK.
Over 37,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish 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. A
large Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
The PKK demanded Turkey's recognition of the Kurds'
identity in its constitution and of their language
as a native language along with Turkish in the
country's Kurdish areas, the party also demanded
an end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, granting them full
political freedoms.
AFP
**
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.
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, a
large Turkey's Kurdish community 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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