By Daren Butler - Reuters

DIYARBAKIR - Security forces in southeast Turkey are on heightened alert amid reports of Kurdish guerrillas infiltrating from northern Iraq after ending a five-year ceasefire last week.

Resurgence of the fighting that cost some 30,000 lives in the 1980s and 1990s could complicate US efforts to bring Turkish peacekeeping troops to central Iraq.

A senior Turkish military source said some 1,000 militants are believed to have arrived since the US-led war began in Iraq, adding to the 500 rebels already believed to be in Turkey.

A spate of attacks near the Iraqi border has heralded the end of the unilateral ceasefire, which the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) declared over at the start of September because of what it said was Ankara’s failure to respond in kind.

“According to information we have received, the group could now conduct fresh operations so security measures have been taken,” the military source told Reuters at the weekend.

The mainstream Milliyet newspaper said last week the Interior Ministry had issued a secret decree to police departments warning of possible rebel attacks on public targets.

A renewal of fighting could also harm ties with Iraq and US-backed Iraqi Kurds there as well as Ankara’s EU bid. There was no sign of tighter security in the region’s main city Diyarbakir, where emergency rule was lifted last year.

However, the local head of the Turkey-based Human Rights Association said there had been a marked rise in rights abuses and the death toll from violence compared to a year earlier.

“With the ceasefire ending, we are seeing an increase in checkpoints and detentions. Our concern is that more people could die and we could see a return to the situation in the 1990s,” Selahattin Demirtas said.