TRKNWS-L NEWS from Vic McDonald

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From: newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl (newsdesk at aps.nl)
Subject: TRKNWS-L NEWS from Vic McDonald


KURDS, GERMANY STRUGGLE

RESUMED DEPORTATIONS TO TURKEY SPARK BATTLE

Washington Post

BERLIN -- After a third consecutive night of firebomb attacks against Turkish
cultural centers and other targets in Germany, authorities Thursday braced
for a political battle over a government plan to resume deportations of
Kurdish refugees to Turkey.

The attacks in at least seven German cities late Wednesday night caused
property damage but no reported injuries. Targets were similar to those
struck earlier in the week, including Turkish businesses, a mosque and a
social club.

Turkish travel agencies, for example, were hit in the western German cities
of Kassel, Dortmund and Saarbrucken, according to police.

WAVES OF ATTACKS

Authorities have blamed Kurdish extremists for such attacks, which have
occurred in waves across Germany for three years.

Kurdish nationalists periodically have used this country as a battleground in
fighting the Turkish government.

About 2 million Turks -- 450,000 of them Kurds -- live in Germany, making
them this country's largest minority group.

German Interior Minister Manfred Kanther announced Wednesday that the
government intended to resume deporting illegal Kurdish immigrants. The
repatriation of Kurds denied political asylum was suspended last year because
of concern that those sent back to Turkey could face imprisonment and
torture.

WRITTEN GUARANTEES

Kanther, who had twice extended the moratorium, said he had received written
guarantees from Turkey's interior minister that the human rights of those
deported would be observed.

Nevertheless, a number of human-rights activists and opposition officials
expressed deep skepticism at Ankara's promises.
MERCURY CENTER     Transmitted:  95-03-17 06:14:57 EST

Firebombers strike new Turkish targets in Germany

    BONN, March 17 (Reuter) - The wave of firebomb attacks on Turkish offices
and mosques in Germany continued for a fourth consecutive night, police said
on Friday.

    Police said molotov cocktails were thrown into Turkish travel agencies,
cultural clubs and a mosque in at least four cities in the states of
Baden-Wuerttemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia, but no one was hurt.

    Police have blamed Kurdish militants, fighting Ankara for an independent
homeland in southeast Turkey, for similar attacks in the past and say they
could increase this weekend ahead of the Kurdish New Year.

    On Thursday, about 40 people were detained in Frankfurt, Germany's
financial capital, after Kurdish protesters threw stones outside the Turkish
consulate. Three police officers were hurt, a spokesman said.

    Kurdish groups have carried out several waves of attacks on Turkish
property in the past three years in protest against what they regard as
Ankara's oppression in their homeland and against Germany's ties with Turkey.


    In the latest attacks, a Turkish club in Gengenbach near Offenburg, a
mosque in the town of Lahr in the Black Forest and a travel agency in Ulm
were firebombed, the interior ministry of Baden-Wuerttemberg said.

    In North Rhine-Westphalia, two molotov cocktails were thrown at a
German-Turkish cultural club in Guetersloh. Witnesses saw two men fleeing the
scene, police said.

    Politicians from Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democrats (CDU)
called for the culprits to be deported if identified.

    The German parliament was due to hold a debate on the deportation of
Kurds to Turkey later on Friday. Interior Minister Manfred Kanther on
Wednesday lifted a moratorium on the deportation of Kurds but most of the 16
federal states have so far decided not to pay heed to his decision.
REUTER                              Transmitted: 95-03-17 04:48:53 EST

Turkish politician scraps Belgium trip over Kurds

    ANKARA, March 17 (Reuter) - Turkish parliament speaker Husamettin
Cindoruk on Friday cancelled a trip to Belgium next week over reports
separatist Kurds would set up a parliament in exile there.

    ``The setting up of a Kurdish parliament in exile in Belgium is an act
aimed at hurting Turkey's territorial integrity, its sovereignty and
political unity,'' Cindoruk said in a statement.

    He was due to travel to Belgium on Tuesday as the guest of his Belgian
counterpart Charles Ferdinand Nothomb.

    Turkey's foreign ministry this week condemned a move by Kurdish exiles to
declare a parliament in the Belgian city of Louvain on the same day, March
21, the Kurdish new year.

    Six Kurdish deputies of Turkey's banned Democracy Party (DEP), in
self-imposed exile in Europe, are seeking Western support for the parliament
backed by the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

    More than 15,000 people have died in Turkey since 1984 when the PKK began
its fight for a separate state in the southeast.
REUTER         Transmitted: 95-03-17 13:29:49 EST

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