ISTANBUL, 24 September 2003 — Three men suspected of being members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were shot dead by the army in central Turkey, Anatolia news agency said yesterday.
And police arrested 15 members of another Kurdish party, the Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP), as they were holding a news conference in Sanliurfa, southeastern Turkey, the agency reported.
The three suspected rebels were killed after they refused to surrender to the army, according to the Anatolia report. It said the clash occurred during a military operation in the Tokat region, an area where Kurdish separatist activity is rare. The report did not say when the shooting had taken place but said the military operation was continuing. The PKK - now renamed KADEK - is Turkey’s main armed Kurdish rebel group.
Earlier this month, it called off a four-year unilateral cease-fire with the government, saying the truce could only continue if it was also respected by the army. But it did not tell its militants to renew fighting.
The separatist rebel group declared the cease-fire in 1999 shortly after the capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, saying it would seek a political solution to the conflict in the country’s restive, mainly Kurdish southeast.
In the incident in Sanliurfa, police broke up the DEHAP news conference in front of the party’s offices and arrested 15 party members for breaking a law on public demonstrations.
The protest came after DEHAP president Tuncer Bakirhan was taken into custody in Ankara along with the leader of another Kurdish political party, the newly formed Free Society Party (Ozgur Toplum), and three musicians.
All five are accused of “aiding an illegal organization” because they attended a concert in Germany that is alleged to have raised funds for Kurdish separatist rebels. The offence can lead to a jail sentence of up to seven years.
Eager to advance its bid to join the European Union, Turkey has granted the Kurds some cultural rights. But the Kurds complain that the reforms have not been implemented on the ground.
However, Bakirhan along with Ahmet Turan Demir, the leader of the Freedom Party were released by the Ankara State Security Court yesterday afternoon after being held in police custody overnight. A few hours earlier the court ordered the release without charge of Haluk Levent, a famous rock musician, and two of his guitarists who had performed at the concert.
The concert in the German town of Gelsenkirchen on Sept. 13 was billed as a Kurdish Festival but was seen in the Turkish media as a pro-PKK rally due to hundreds of attendees waving PKK flags and portraits of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Between 1984 and 1999 more than 36,000 people, mainly Kurds, were killed in fighting between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces. Fighting has been sporadic since the 1999 capture of Ocalan and the PKK’s subsequent unilateral cease-fire.
Bakirhan was in a triumphant mood as he left the court to the applause of supporters. “This decision by the court today is a great thing for Turkish democracy and justice,” Bakirhan said.
