Six killed in fresh violence in southeast Turkey
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-10 09:43

Four Turkish soldiers and two Kurdish guerrillas were killed in a rebel attack on a military unit, and a series of blasts went off in southeast Turkey, officials said, in the latest wave of mounting violence in the mainly Kurdish region.

Two members of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were shot dead in clashes that erupted after the attack on the army outpost near the town of Guclukonak, in Sirnak province, which borders Iraq and Syria.

Security officials said the soldiers, on guard duty outside the post, were attacked shortly after midnight with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles.

The army launched an operation with air cover against the PKK in the area, they said.

Education Minister Huseyin Celik, who was visiting the region, confirmed the deaths of the four soldiers.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of a school in Sirnak's Idil town as part of government efforts to boost education in a region plagued by chronic poverty and years of conflict between the army and the PKK.

"We came here to open a school... and we are very upset at such news," Celik was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. "We condemn terrorism."

Friday evening, three blasts went off almost simultaneously outside shops at three separate locations in the town of Silopi, at the Iraqi border, local police told AFP.

The semi-official Anatolia said one person was wounded, while the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported several injured.

Two explosions occurred simultaneously at around 8:30 pm (1830 GMT), while the third followed in about 15 minutes, Firat said.

The blasts followed a police operation in Silopi earlier this week in which two suspected Kurdish rebels and seven accomplices were detained on suspicion that they were planning "simultaneous sensational bombings/armed attacks," according to an official statement.

The security forces also seized weapons and about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of plastic explosives in the homes of the suspects and a member of Silopi's township council, identified by the media as the town's Kurdish deputy mayor Abdulaziz Coban who remained at large and was wanted by the police.

Unrest in the southeast rose noticeably this year after the PKK called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.

Tensions escalated last month with a wave of violent protests over allegations that members of the security forces were involved in a bomb attack on a bookstore owned by a former Kurdish guerrilla in a town in Hakkari province, which borders Sirnak.

The attack killed one person and the riots that followed claimed another five lives, rattling the Ankara government at a time when it is under pressure to demonstrate its respect for democracy and the rule of law in its bid to join the EU.

The bombing raised questions over whether Turkey has suceeded in purging rogue elements from the security forces accused of summary executions in the southeast during the early 1990s, the peak years of the PKK rebellion.

The EU has said the investigation into the attacks will be a test for the rule of law in Turkey.

Ankara opened membership talks with Brussels on October 4 with a view to joining the bloc in a decade.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984, when the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the region.