Kurdish rebels confirm Turk mayor kidnapped

Turkish police dismantle bomb near Istanbul barracks

ISTANBUL (AFP) - Rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) yesterday claimed responsibility for kidnapping the mayor of a town in southeastern Turkey, rejecting earlier reports he had been freed.

“The mayor... of Yedisu, Hasim Akyurek, was arrested by one of our guerilla teams on July 27... This action has been carried out because of the many complaints and requests by the people regarding this person,” the PKK announced in a statement quoted by the pro-Kurd MHA news agency in Germany.

Locals had complained about the activities of the mayor of Yayladere district, which includes Yedisu, for “working in cooperation with the Turkish security forces, exercising threats and pressure harmful to the people,” the PKK document said.

Akyurek, a Kurd and member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), was abducted Wednesday during a visit to a mountainous part of his constituency.

The PKK denied the mayor had been released, as his son Zulfu Akyurek announced on Saturday after receiving an anonymous telephone call.

“The person in question will be freed in the case where he is found innocent by an inquiry that will be carried out into the allegations against him,” the PKK statement said, adding that the hostage was being held in a zone under PKK control and was in good health.

Turkish police yesterday also dismantled a bomb uncovered near a military barracks and a prison on the outskirts of Istanbul, security sources said. Bomb disposal experts defused the device, which contained 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of A4 plastic explosives linked to a mobile telephone, and took it away for analysis. No one had yet claimed responsibility for planting the bomb.