TRKNWS-L Germans Arrest PKK Firebom

[newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl]

From: newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl (newsdesk at aps.nl)
Subject: TRKNWS-L Germans Arrest PKK Firebombers


      HANOVER, Germany, March 5 (Reuter) - German police have arrested two
Kurds after a series of fire-bomb attacks against Turkish travel agencies,
police said on Sunday.

    The police said the two Kurds were believed to be sympathisers of the
banned separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and thought to have been
involved in arson attacks in the northern city of Hanover at the end of last
month.

    The news magazine Focus, citing security sources, said police feared that
the PKK planned to unleash a wave of demonstrations and violence in Germany
around the Kurdish New Year on March 21.

    German police believe militant Kurds are responsible for attacks against
dozens of Turkish travel agencies and German agencies selling holidays in
Turkey in the past week.

    In response, last Thursday, Bonn banned the Kurdish Information Office
(KIB) in Cologne and five similar groups in Bavaria which it said were
closely linked to the PKK.

    Bonn had banned the PKK and dozens of associated groups in 1993 after a
series of spectacular raids against Turkish targets across Europe.

    Leaflets saying ``No holidays in Turkey'' and signed ``Children from the
country of fire and the sun'' were found scattered near travel agencies
damaged last week in the northern city of Hamburg.

    At the scene of one fire-bombing, police found a note from the National
Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK), the political wing of the separatist
PKK. The note demanded a boycott of Turkey's tourism industry.

    The PKK has waged a 10-year war against Ankara for an independent Kurdish
homeland in southeast Turkey.

    Militant Kurds have frequently targeted Turkish institutions in Germany
to protest against what they see as Ankara's oppression of Kurds living in
southeastern Turkey and Bonn's close ties with the Turkish government.

 REUTER
--- APS (Newsdesk)