DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, March 5 (Reuters) - Turkish authorities said on Monday they had
evidence two missing Kurdish party activists were in separatist rebel camps in northern Iraq.

People's Democracy Party (HADEP) officials Serdar Tanis and Ebubekir Deniz have not
been seen since January 25, when they were detained by police in the country's
mainly-Kurdish southeast. Police have said they released the men unharmed.

Turkish forces searching a truck entering Turkey from Iraq on Sunday found a letter
allegedly written by a member of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) central
committee, saying the men were in its camps in northern Iraq, the governor's office in the
province of Sirnak told Reuters.

Police arrested the driver of the truck, the official said.

Turkish prosecutors are seeking the closure of HADEP, Turkey's only legal Kurdish party,
on the grounds that it maintains links with the PKK. HADEP denies those charges.

HADEP vice president Mehmet Metiner said the letter did nothing to ease concerns the two
men had disappeared while in police custody.

"The uncertainty remains. The letter does not lessen our suspicions but increases them,"
Metiner told Reuters. "Until our party officials are found, the same questions remain."

HADEP and rights groups have held demonstrations demanding more information on the
whereabouts of Tanis and Deniz, and HADEP leaders have warned that mass unrest could
break out over their disappearance.

The issue threatens the relative peace in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, where fighting
betweeen the PKK and security forces has dropped off since Turkey captured and sentenced
to death PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999.

More than 30,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died since an armed struggle for
self-rule broke out in 1984.

The Turkish military says some 5,000 PKK fighters remain in the mountains of Iraq and
Iran. Ankara has sent troops into northern Iraq -- out of Baghdad's control since the end of
the 1991 Gulf War -- and has pledged technical support for two Iraqi Kurdish factions to
combat the PKK.

Two PKK leaders appeared on Kurdish television at the weekend and said rebels were
prepared to re-enter Turkey.

Duran Kalkan and Kani Yilmaz told satellite channel Medya TV that Turkish soldiers had
grouped along the Iraqi border and were planning an attack on PKK fighters.

"The Turkish army is moving toward the Iraqi border...with a plan to attack the PKK,"
Kalkan said. "Clashes could start at any time."
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com