Kurdish rebel group claims fatal Turkish explosion

A Kurdish rebel group said it was responsible for an explosion over the weekend that killed four people, including three foreign tourists, but local authorities insisted today that the blast was caused by an exploding gas canister.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons rebel group claimed responsibility for the explosion in a call to the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, warning tourists not to come to Turkey, the news agency said.

But authorities denied the claims.

“It wasn’t that. It was a gas canister explosion,” said Guzide Ormeci, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office of the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya.

Turkish authorities are reluctant to publicise attacks at the height of the tourism season in Turkey. After a bombing in Istanbul earlier this month, the police chief asked journalists not to “exaggerate” the incident “because the tourist season is coming up.”

Authorities later said that explosion was caused by a bomb in a rubbish bin, which the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons also claimed.

The explosion on Sunday occurred at a restaurant near a waterfall in Manavgat, a popular tourist district of Antalya. Those killed included a Norwegian, a Hungarian and a Turkish waiter, authorities have said. Local official Fikret Dayioglu said today that the fourth victim, previously believed to be a Russian, was in fact a 42-year-old Dutch woman.

The Vatan newspaper said security cameras near the waterfall showed two people standing watch as another put a package into a rubbish container some 20 minutes before the explosion.

The newspaper’s claims could not be independently verified, and Vatan did not publish pictures from the security cameras.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons have claimed responsibility for several fires, sabotage attacks and explosions, but authorities have either denied or failed to verify those claims.

Kurdish rebels have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey since 1984, and some 37,000 people have been killed. Most of the fighting has occurred in the Kurdish-majority southeast, where deadly clashes between rebels and Turkish soldiers are frequent.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons appear to be a new and particularly violent group, which has vowed repeatedly to bring the fight to Turkey’s cities and tourist areas.

Separately, no official reason has yet been given for the massive fire in May that destroyed much of the cargo section at Istanbul’s airport, which the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons also claimed.

Also today, suspected Kurdish rebels exploded a remote-controlled bomb on a railway in eastern Turkey, causing damage to the line, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. The explosion came just after a passenger train had passed, the agency said.