TUNCELI, Turkey, 2 May 2005 — A Kurdish separatist group yesterday claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in a western Turkish resort town that killed a police officer, a news agency known to have close links with the group reported. A spokesman for the Kurdistan Liberation Hawks (TAK), a group known to carry out urban attacks for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was quoted as telling the Europe-based Mezopotamya News Agency that the TAK was behind the bomb blast in Kusadasi on Saturday.
Four policemen were wounded in the explosion that occurred when they investigated a suspicious package next to a statue of modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the town center. Police were setting up a security cordon after a report of the package in front of the statue when the explosion happened.
The spokesman also said the group was behind two incidents last week in Istanbul where police defused bombs placed under a bridge and at a municipal bus park. The spokesman said the organization was planning urban attacks and warned the “Western tourists to stay away from Turkey”.
The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 30,000 people have died in the conflict, but violence subsided after the 1999 capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan. The blast occurred as a chief superintendent mistook the parcel, left in a public toilet in Kusadasi town in Aydin province, to be harmless and was carrying it back to his vehicle without wearing any protective gear, the province’s Governor Mustafa Malay said.
Meanwhile, Turkish riot police yesterday detained at least 47 people who rallied in a venue despite an official ban to mark May Day in the country’s biggest city Istanbul, Anatolia reported. Police swooped down on three different protests in the downtown Taksim Square on the city’s European side after the demonstrators ignored orders to disperse. Some protesters tried to resist arrest by hitting officers with sticks and police retaliated with tear gas and truncheons, the report said.
Thousands of people also gathered at the Kadikoy district on the Asian side of the city for a rally organized by leading trade unions and civic organizations and approved by authorities. A large rally was also underway in capital Ankara. There were no reports of incidents at either venues.
May 1 demonstrations have in the past led to violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators in Turkey. In 1996, three protesters were killed in Istanbul and dozens of demonstrators and police officers were injured after violence erupted at Kadikoy. The most deadly May Day in Istanbul was in 1977, when 37 protesters were killed in Taksim square during clashes between demonstrators and police.
