ANKARA (AFP) – Nine Kurdish rebels have been killed in two separate clashes with the army in Turkey’s restive southeast, the military said on Saturday. One of the clashes, in which four militants of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed, occurred overnight in a mountainous area in the province of Hakkari, which borders Iraq and Iran, a statement on the army’s website said. Five others were killed in fighting in the neighboring province of Sirnak on Friday, it said. The security forces also seized weapons and explosives in the clashes.

ANKARA (AFP) – A draft constitution for Turkey that has fuelled tensions between the Islamist-rooted government and secularist forces is likely to be submitted to parliament early next year, a television report said on Saturday. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is still working on the draft and will ”most probably” send it to parliament for a vote early next year, senior AKP legislator Bekir Bozdag was quoted as telling the CNN Turk news channel. Boosted by its landslide re-election in July, the AKP has started drafting a new constitution, which, it says, will expand freedoms and bring Turkish democracy in line with contemporary standards. The current constitution is a legacy of the 1980 military coup. It has been amended several times but critics of all political persuasions agree that a fundamental overhaul is needed to stamp out its authoritarian spirit.

Turkish Cypriots in the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus on Saturday started a ferry run between the island and Syria in a bid to break their international isolation, local television said. The ferry left from Famagusta in the Turkish-held north, which is recognised only by Ankara, for the Syrian coastal town of Latakia, Turkish Cypriot television said. Backed by Turkey, the Turkish Cypriots have been campaigning to have transport and trade restrictions on their statelet lifted since 2004, when they voted overwhelmingly in favor of a UN reunification plan that was killed off by a strong Greek Cypriot “no” in a simultaneous referendum. The vote’s failure ensured that the Greek Cypriots and the internationally recognized Cyprus government in the south joined the European Union alone that year, leaving the Turkish Cypriots out in the cold. The television said the ferry link was expected to become a regular service in October. (AFP)