TURKEY: Two Kurdish rebels were killed in a failed attack on a governor's house in southeast Turkey and four soldiers died in a landmine blast amid rising tension in the region, officials said yesterday.
Police in Siirt province said two suicide bombers were killed late on Monday after officers foiled their attack on the governor's house. One bomber had killed himself, while another died trying to escape police. A police officer was wounded.
But the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said the men were not suicide bombers and that one had died after detonating his hand grenade and the other was killed in a shoot-out with police, according to Europe-based Mezopotamya news agency, which is close to the rebels.
Separately, four soldiers were killed in Siirt province yesterday when their vehicle hit a landmine in the road. Officials said rebels had planted the mines.
Landmines are strewn throughout the southeast, vestiges of the conflict between the PKK and Turkish security forces that began in 1984 and has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
The PKK sought to establish an independent homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeast, but scaled back its demands to winning cultural rights for the estimated 12 million Kurds who live in Turkey, a candidate for European Union membership.
Violence in the impoverished southeast has been on the rise since the PKK called off a unilateral ceasefire last year. The military has warned that the PKK could step up attacks in cities and rural areas after guerrillas were detected smuggling explosives into Turkey from northern Iraq.
Observers have said tensions between Turks and Kurds could intensify after the European Court of Human Rights ruled last week Turkey did not provide jailed PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan with a fair trial in 1999. Turkey may now have to retry Ocalan.