SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY FOR 24 MAY 2006

UNCLAS ADANA 000124 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PINS PGOV PHUM TU SUBJECT: SOUTHEAST TURKEY PRESS SUMMARY FOR 24 MAY 2006 This is the Southeastern Turkey press summary for May 24, 2006. Please note that Turkish press reports often contain errors or exaggerations; AmConsulate Adana does not vouch for the accuracy of the reports summarized here. POLITICAL, SECURITY, HUMAN RIGHTS ZAMAN: The daily reported that so-called general secretary of TKP-ML TIKKO (Liberation Army of the Workers and Peasants of Turkey),who was caught with seven other members of the terrorist organization in Nigde province on May 16 (see press summary 05/22),recruited his 15-year-old niece to the organization and had been indifferent to the rapes committed on her by the organization members. It has reportedly been found out that TKP-ML general secretary was the person who gave instructions to conduct a bomb attack on Cankiri Governor back in 1999. ZAMAN / EVRENSEL / CUMHURIYET / YENI SAFAK: The US State Department's Iraq Coordinator, James Jeffrey, said US Ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, had met Iraqi Kurdish leaders in Northern Iraq to discuss measures against PKK. RADIKAL / HURRIYET / YENI SAFAK: PKK terrorists detonated the previous night a bomb they placed on a section of BOTAS petroleum pipeline located between Agri and its Dogubeyazit district. Material damage has been reported. Separately, a remote controlled bomb exploded on a road in Diyarbakir's Ergani district. Police officers traveling on that road were saved when the bomb went off earlier than estimated arrival time of the officers. OZGUR GUNDEM: Fifty-one foreign nationals, who have attempted to cross the border illegally in Edirne, a northwestern province, have been caught in the last two days. OZGUR GUNDEM: Mahmut Tasci, one of the attorneys of terrorist leader Abdullah Ocalan, protested prison authorities who attempted to strip-search him last week before he would be allowed in the prison where Ocalan is being kept. Tasci was denied entrance when Tasci objected to that prison policy. CUMHURIYET / EVRENSEL: Mayor of Diyarbakir's Hazro district has been arrested on grounds that he violated the political parties act during the 2002 election time by hanging the flag of his former party (DEHAP) on his house window during a time slot before the polling day when all campaigning by the political parties for the election must have stopped. YENI SAFAK / CUMHURIYET / EVRENSEL / RADIKAL: A lawsuit has been instituted against four senior administrators of DTP Diyarbakir branch on grounds that they "helped the terrorist organization willingly and committed crime on behalf unauthorized protests of late March in Diyarbakir. DTP administrators are facing 5 to 15 years of prison sentences. EVRENSEL: Two thousand soldiers of the Bolu and Kayseri Brigades have launched military operations in separate sections of Hakkari's Yuksekova district. YENI SAFAK: LPG tanker trucks piling up at the Habur Border gate has been posing a grave danger in Sirnak's Silopi district. CUMHURIYET: A group of secularists will hold a march today in Adana. EVRENSEL / OZGUR GUNDEM: Quarantine has been imposed in two villages in Mus's Varto district because of foot-and-mouth disease detected in the farm animals. REID