Author: Piling » Wed Sep 25, 2013 6:25 pm
well done !
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey's Kurdish region,— Eighteen inmates detained for suspected links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Wednesday tunnelled their way out of a prison in eastern Turkey, the justice minister said.
Four of the fugitives had already been convicted and the remainder were being held, charged with "membership of a terrorist organisation," Sadullah Ergin said.
The jailbreak sparked a police operation to track down the escaped prisoners after the incident in the Kurdish province of Bingol in Turkish Kurdistan region.
Bingöl Governor İbrahim Taşyapan confirmed that 18 PKK guerrillas escaped from the city prison through a tunnel they dug, Firat news agency reported.
The PKK guerrillas, said the governor, emerged from the tunnel from a waste-water canal 10 meters away from the outer walls of the prison.
The authorities also added they think the PKK prisoners have been digging the tunnel for around a year. However the governor said neither the soil nor shovels possibly used in the escape have been found.
Turkish police helicopters are searching for the PKK guerrillas, who might have changed their clothes,www.ekurd.net above rural areas. Heavy security at all entries and exits at highway check points.
Bingöl prison can hold 325 inmates and is situated 12 kilometers from the city center.
Turkey has recently entered into a peace process with the Kurdish rebel movement after months of clandestine negotiations between the PKK's jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan and the Turkish secret service.
Ocalan declared a truce in March.
But the process has been fragile and Kurdish rebels announced this month they had halted their pullout from Turkey, accusing the government of failing to deliver on the promised reforms to enhance the rights of the estimated 15 million Kurds in the country.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) is putting the final touches on a long awaited "democratisation package" of reforms which will be unveiled on September 30.
Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to establish a Kurdish state in the south east of the country. By 2013 more than 45,000 people have since been killed.
But now its aim is the creation an autonomous region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds, who make up around 22.5 million of the country's 75-million population, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.
The PKK wants constitutional recognition for the Kurds, regional self-governance and Kurdish-language education in schools.
PKK's demands included releasing PKK detainees, lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish constitution.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish language and private Kurdish language courses with the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish politicians say the measures fall short of their expectations.
The PKK is considered as 'terrorist' organization by Ankara and U.S. The PKK continues to be on the blacklist list in EU despite court ruling which overturned a decision to place the Kurdish rebel group PKK and its political wing on the European Union's terror list.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, AFP | firatnews.com | Ekurd.net | Agencies
