12 June 2004	Saturday	23 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

TUNCELI, June 11: Three Turkish security personnel were killed on Friday in the heaviest day of fighting since Kurdish separatists called off a unilateral ceasefire.
Backed by helicopter gunships, up to 10,000 Turkish soldiers launched an operation in a remote corner of southeastern Tunceli province after guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) attacked military armoured vehicles with rocket fire, killing one soldier and wounding two others, a military source said.

"Soldiers on duty on a road in Tunceli province came under heavy attack today," he said, adding the militants numbered around 600 people. "The clashes are continuing." Separately, a Turkish policeman and a watchman were killed on Friday after they came under automatic rifle fire near the town of Batman, a security official said.

Nerves are on edge about a possible rise in violence after the PKK declared an end to its five-year ceasefire late last month following several clashes with Turkish forces. May was the southeast's bloodiest month in years, with at least 12 rebels and eight security personnel killed.

Earlier this week, security forces killed three Kurdish guerrillas in Adiyaman province. "We never believed in the ceasefire. It never was a true ceasefire," another military source said.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 in a campaign to carve out an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeast, and more than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, died in the conflict. But fighting has subsided since PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan was captured and jailed in 1999.

He ordered his followers to withdraw from Turkey and seek greater cultural rights for Kurds through political means. Most are based in north Iraq. The latest clashes coincide with the launch of Kurdish language broadcasts on state television and radio, part of a reform package aimed at boosting Kurdish cultural rights to meet demands from the European Union, which Turkey aims to join.

In another victory for Kurdish rights, a court on Wednesday ordered the release of four former lawmakers, including Nobel peace prize nominee Leyla Zana, jailed for nearly 10 years for alleged links to the PKK. The EU had long sought their release.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said he had discussed the PKK issue with US President George W. Bush on the sidelines of this week's summit of the Group of Eight main industrialized nations which he attended in the US state of Georgia.

"The United States is sensitive about the PKK issue but has no action plan," Erdogan told Turkish television. Ankara has been pressing US forces in neighbouring Iraq to crack down on an estimated 5,000 PKK fighters holed up in the mountains of mainly Kurdish northern Iraq. -Reuters