ANKARA, 14 August 2005 — The governor of the eastern Turkish province of Elazig escaped injury after his car was damaged by a mine yesterday, the Anatolia news agency reported. The remotely controlled mine shattered the windscreen of Governor Kadir Kocdemir’s car and damaged another vehicle carrying bodyguards in the town of Alacakaya, the agency said.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the past has targeted governors in the Anatolian region. Turkish security forces yesterday killed a PKK rebel who was trying to plant a mine on a road used by military convoys in the far southeastern Hakkari region, the news agency said, quoting local authorities. More than 1.5 kilos of C-4 plastic explosive were found with the militant’s body, authorities said.
Violence has escalated in Turkey’s southeast in recent months since the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, ended its five-year cease-fire in June 2004 on the grounds that Ankara’s concessions to Kurds were insufficient. Rebel leaders on Friday cautiously welcomed a pledge by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resolve the conflict by democratic means despite recent attacks. About 37,000 people died between 1984 and 1999 as the PKK engaged in a violent armed campaign for Kurdish autonomy in the southeast.
