DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Jan 11 (AFP) Turkish soldiers have killed six Kurdistan Workers
 Party (PKK) rebels in the southeastern province of Sirnak in the past two days, security officials
 said Thursday.

 Fighting broke between soldiers conducting an operation to "ensure order and safety" and a
 group of PKK rebels in the remote province which borders Syria and Iraq, said a statement from
 the emergency rule headquarters in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

 The statement added that the dead rebels were believed to have entered Turkey from a
 neighbouring country, which it did not name.

 The PKK took up arms against the Ankara government in 1984 in pursuit of Kurdish self-rule in
 Turkey's eastern and southeastern regions, which are mainly populated by Kurds.

 But in September last year, the group declared that it was halting its armed campaign and
 withdrawing from Turkish territory to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.

 Since then, previously heavy fighting in the region, which has claimed some 36,500 lives, has
 scaled down considerably.

 But the PKK truce, launched following peace calls from condemned rebel Abdullah Ocalan, was
 brushed aside by the Turkish army as a "terrorist ploy".

 Most of the rebels are believed to have crossed into northern Iraq, an area outside Baghdad's
 control since the 1991 Gulf war, since the truce announcement.

 The Turkish army frequently launches cross-border operations into Kurdish-held northern Iraq to
 hunt down the rebels who it says use the area as a springboard for attacks against Turkey.

 Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit announced at the weekend that Turkish soldiers in northern
 Iraq were currently giving 'technical help" to the two leading Kurdish factions in the mountainous
 area to fight against the PKK.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com