Kurdish protester killed

TURKEY: A KURDISH man was killed yesterday during a second day of violence between Kurdish demonstrators and Turkish police in the south-eastern city of Yuksekova, hospital officials said.

Kurdish protesters threw stones at members of the security forces from behind a barricade they had erected in the centre of Yuksekova yesterday. Police fired gas into the crowd.

The death in Yuksekova was caused by a bullet wound, hospital sources said.

Tensions are high in Turkey's mostly-Kurdish south-east as military operations against the PKK have continued after the Turkish military launched an eight-day operation into northern Iraq to wipe out PKK camps there.

The violence in Yuksekova began when police tried to break up celebrations of the ancient spring festival of Newroz, which security officials said were unauthorised.

On Saturday, some 80 Kurdish protesters and 23 policemen were injured, and nearly 200 demonstrators were taken into custody in various cities across south-eastern Turkey.

One man died in the province of Van late on Saturday from a bullet injury sustained when gangs of protesters clashed with security forces, police said.

Newroz, Nevruz in Turkish, is celebrated in Iran, northern Iraq and central Asia as the beginning of spring. In Turkey it has been associated with Turkey's large Kurdish population in the southeastern part of the country.

The festival is often a flashpoint for clashes between the Turkish security forces and supporters of the PKK, which took up arms in 1984 to try to secure a Kurdish ethnic homeland in south-eastern Turkey.

Some 40,000 people have died in violence between the PKK and Turkey's military since then. 

© 2008 Reuters

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times