Three Dead, Dozens More Injured In Turkish Blast
Julie Farby - All Headline News Staff Writer Marmaris, Turkey (AHN) - Three people died and dozens more were injured in a blast in Turkey's Mediterranean city Antalya on Monday, the fifth bomb to hit the country in less than 24 hours. 10 Britons and six Turks in Marmaris were wounded when a bomb placed under a seat in a minibus exploded on a street crowded with bars and restaurants around midnight, with no immediate claims of responsibility. Marmaris is one of Turkey's most popular tourist destinations. Local authorities pledged to find the culprits, suspected of belonging to the banned separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a more than 20-year campaign to carve a homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeast. Antalya and Marmaris are resorts popular with wesern European and Russian tourists as well as Turks. Some 1.8 million Britons are expected to visit Turkey this year, most to the country's coast. Locals are concerned the tourist industry, a powerful motor of the Turkish economy, would be further dented by the attacks, which are the latest in a string of bombings over the past year. Marmaris local official Cemalettin Ozdemir tells Reuters, "These explosions were not directly against British tourists. Many Turks were injured too." The PKK launched a separatist campaign in 1984. Turkey, like the United States and European Union, considers the group a terrorist organization and blames it for the |
