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Turkish police hold 27 after deadly
Istanbul bombing
23.6.2010 |
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June
23, 2010
ISTANBUL, — The
Turkish police have detained 27 people as part of a
probe into a deadly bombing on a bus in Istanbul,
Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.
The roadside bomb, detonated by remote control,
targeted a bus carrying army personnel to work
Tuesday, killing
four Turkish soldiers
and the teenage daughter of an officer and wounding
about a dozen people.
It was not immediately clear whether the suspected
perpetrators of the attack were among the 27
detainees, rounded up in a joint operation by
anti-terror police and special forces, according to
Anatolia.
Meanwhile ANF news agency reported that at least 11
people were detained during an operation against the
pro-Kurdish BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) in
Istanbul.
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File Photo: Turkish police. EPA photo |
Many houses in
Küçükçekmece and Başakşehir were raided by police.
Among the 11 detaines are also BDP members and
executives. The names of the detainees are as
follows; : Aytekin Aydemir, Rasim Ağraş, M. Selim
Özer, Lütfü Balbal, Yusuf Turan, Reşit Mete, Yeter
Akbay, İsmail Özdemir, Mehmet Altıntaş, Behçet Gök,
Halit Erik. the website reported Wednesday.
Radical Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Freedom
Falcons TAK claimed
responsibility
for the blast, the latest episode in
surging violence since jailed Kurdish rebel leader
Abdullah Ocalan said through his lawyers last month
he was abandoning efforts to seek dialogue with
Ankara for a peaceful end to the 26-year Kurdish
conflict.
Ocalan's separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
had threatened to spread violence to urban areas
after it killed 12 soldiers in weekend attacks in
remote regions in the mainly Kurdish southeast
[Turkey Kurdistan].
The attacks have triggered nationwide outrage and
turned up pressure on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan for tougher measures against the PKK,www.ekurd.netwith
many also urging him to shelve plans to expand
Kurdish freedoms.
Popular anger simmered at the funeral of the
youngest victim of Tuesday's bombing, 17-year-old
high school student Buse Sariyag, who was travelling
on the bus with her father. She was laid to rest in
Elmadag, an Ankara suburb.
"The martyrs are immortal, the motherland is
indivisible," shouted a crowd of some 5,000 people,
waving Turkish flags, as they marched to the
cemetary after funeral prayers at a local mosque.
Army chief Ilker Basbug and Deputy Prime Minister
Cemil Cicek attended the funeral.
Erdogan's government has pledged to boost Kurdish
freedoms and economic development in the southeast,
hoping to discourage separatism and cajole the PKK
into laying down arms.
The faltering initiative, announced last year, has
met with public hostility amid persisting rebel
violence, but Erdogan said Tuesday he remained
committed to reform.
Ankara however rejects dialogue with the PKK,
insisting the rebels should either surrender or face
the army.
Since 1984 the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the
mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey
[Turkey-Kurdistan] which has claimed around 45,000
lives of Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas.
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,www.ekurd.netthe party also demanded an
end to ethnic discrimination in Turkish laws and
constitution against Kurds, ranting them full
political freedoms.
A large Turkey's Kurdish community estimate to 25
million openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK
rebels.
The PKK is considered a 'terrorist' organization by
Ankara, U.S., the PKK continues to be on the
blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which
overturned a decision
to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its
political wing on the European Union's terror list.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency, AFP | Agencies
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