Reuters: Turk parliament to probe human mine detector claim

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

Subject: Reuters: Turk parliament to probe human mine detector claim
From: Press Agency Ozgurluk <ozgurluk at xs4all.nl>

  	  				 
	 ANKARA (Reuter) - A Turkish parliamentary commission will  
probe accusations that security forces made Kurdish villagers 
act as human mine detectors in the fight against separatist 
rebels, a government MP said Thursday. 
	 But a high-ranking security official said he doubted the  
allegations that troops forced residents of Tekevler village to 
walk in front of them over land where mines were believed to 
have been sown. 
	 ``I am hearing this for the first time but it sounds like a  
fable. Why would they use people when there are mine 
detectors?'' the security official said by telephone from the 
southeastern city of Diyarbakir 
	 Government deputy Musa Okcu said a parliamentary human  
rights delegation would carry out an investigation in Tekevler 
Friday. ``The villagers told me that security forces had forced 
them to walk ahead to see if there were any mines on land near 
the village,'' Okcu told Reuters. 
	 He said no mines were found in the incident which happened  
in the last week of December. 
	 More than 21,000 people have been killed in 12 years of  
conflict between troops and Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas 
fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast. Both 
sides plant mines. 
	 Turkey is under pressure from Europe to improve its human  
rights record as one of several conditions for acceptance of 
Ankara's long-standing bid to enter the European Union. 
  	   
	


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