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Three killed in Kurdish protests in Istanbul-reports
Mon 3 Apr 2006 4:21 AM ET

ISTANBUL, April 3 (Reuters) - Three people were crushed to death by a moving bus set ablaze by unidentified protesters in Istanbul late on Sunday, Turkish media reported.

Petrol bombs were thrown at the vehicle amid pro-Kurdish protests in Turkey's largest city following days of unrest in the country's largely Kurdish southeast.

"Terror in Istanbul," NTV television said on its website.

Riots began in the southeast on Tuesday following the funerals of 14 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) killed in clashes with security forces.

Scores of civilians have already died in street clashes with security forces.

The past week has seen some of Turkey's worst civil unrest since the PKK took up arms against the state in 1984.

Political analysts and diplomats say the violence reflects local anger over high unemployment, poverty and Ankara's refusal to grant more autonomy to the mainly Kurdish region.

The police told Reuters an investigation into the deaths in Istanbul was continuing but declined to say how many had died.

Ankara, like the European Union and the United States, regards the PKK as a terrorist organisation responsible for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since it launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in 1984. But many Kurds sympathise with the PKK.





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