ISTANBUL (Agencies)
Kurdish rebels kidnapped three German tourists in Eastern Turkey on Wednesday, while three gunmen and three Turkish policemen were killed in a separate attack on a guard post outside the well-fortified U.S. consulate in Istanbul.
The assailants "directly" targeted the police post outside the high-walled U.S. consulate in the upscale district of Istinye, Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said.
They jumped from a car and opened fire at the post around 11 a.m. (0800 GMT), a witness told NTV television, adding that they also fired shots at the building.
The security forces returned fire, killing all three gunmen.
The attack was "an obvious act of terrorism" aimed at the United States, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, said in Ankara.
"The persons who lost their lives are Turkish citizens and we are very sad about that," he said, praising the police response as "effective and quick."
Turkish officials also condemned the attack as an act of terrorism and the investigation was handed to prosecutors specializing in terrorism cases.
"I strongly condemn such terrorist acts. Turkey will fight to the end against those who are behind them," Turkish President Abdullah Gul said.
The assailants were aged between 25 and 30, a prosecutor said, while NTV quoted Guler as saying that all three were Turkish nationals.
The most recent attack on a foreign mission in Turkey was in 2003 when al-Qaeda militants detonated a car bomb at the British consulate in central Istanbul, and simultaneously attacked the British HSBC bank.
The British consul was killed in the attacks, which followed the bombings five days earlier of two synagogues in Istanbul. About 60 people were killed in the four blasts, the deadliest terrorist attacks in Turkey. |
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Tourists kidnapped Meanwhile, Kurdish guerrillas kidnapped three German tourists on a climbing expedition in eastern Turkey, a local governor said on Wednesday.
The three tourists had established a camp on Mount Ararat in Agri province as part of a 13-member climbing team when they were seized by a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.
Kidnapping tourists is a rare tactic for the outlawed separatist PKK whose activities are mainly focused on attacking military targets in southeast Turkey.
Agri province, which borders Iran, is to the north of the main PKK conflict region and is a popular destination for mountain climbers.
"The terrorists said they carried out this action because of the German government's recent moves against PKK associations and sympathizers," Anatolian reported the governor as saying.
Last month Germany banned Kurdish television station Roj TV, which Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble described as being a mouthpiece for the PKK.
Germany extradited two PKK militants to Turkey last year.
The PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of establishing an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.
Some 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. |
