DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Feb 14 (AFP)  Lawyers for two missing Kurdish politicans have
 asked the European Court of Human Rights to pressure Ankara over their clients who have not
 been seen for more than two weeks, one of the lawyers said Wednesday.

 "We submitted an urgent application to the court on February 9" to help in efforts to locate
 Serdar Tanis and Ebubekir Deniz, lawyer Tahir Elci told AFP in this southeastern city.
 Diyarbakir is the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish-populated region.

 The Strasbourg-based court informed the lawyers that it had asked Turkey to turn over any
 information on the disappearance of the two men, both members of the pro-Kurdish People's
 Democracy Party (HADEP), Elci said.

 Tanis, who is HADEP chairman in the southeastern town of Silopi, and Deniz disappeared on
 January 25 after being summoned to local security force offices.

 The two were last seen by two fellow party members who drove them to the police station,
 according to HADEP deputy chairman Hamit Geylani. One hour later they could no longer be
 contacted on their mobile phones.

 Police first denied having summoned the men, then conceded they had been called in but said
 they were let go shortly afterwards, Geylani said.

 The governor of the southeastern province of Sirnak, where Silopi is located, denied assertions
 that security forces were still holding the two HADEP members, charging instead that "certain
 media organizations and political parties are trying to disrupt the atmosphere of peace in the
 region."

 Last Friday, security forces found two corpses in Sirnak province close to the border with Iraq,
 but they were not identified as those of Tanis and Deniz, a local source told AFP.

 The bodies are thought to belong to rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which picked
 up arms against the Ankara government in 1984 for Kurdish self-rule in the region, the source
 added on condition of anonymity.

 Turkish officials say HADEP is controlled by the PKK, which declared an end to its armed
 campaign in September 1999 and said it wanted to pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

 HADEP, which seeks a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question, denies the charges against
 it, but nonetheless faces a possible ban for allegedly maintaining close links to the rebels.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com