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KurdistanObserver.com
Iran Says Four Police Seized by PKK-Linked Group
TEHRAN, Aug 15 (AFP) Four Iranian policemen
have been taken hostage in the northwest of the country near the border with
Turkey by a group linked to Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
police said on Monday.
"Four members of the police force were taken hostage by the Pejak armed group
in Western Azerbaijan province Friday evening," Iran's police chief Brigadier
General Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam said, according to official news agencies.
He said however that he hoped they would be freed soon, and declined to
confirm press reports that one had been killed.
A week ago, the deputy governor of Western Azerbaijan, Abbas Khorshidi,
denied reports that forces from Pejak, said to be linked to the PKK, were in the
area.
Kurdish areas in western Iran have been the scene of ethnic violence after
police in July shot and killed a Kurdish man, said to be wanted on criminal
charges the Kurdish stronghold of Mahabad.
So far, eight Iranian soldiers and two people have reported killed in
fighting between Iranian border guards and Pejak.
Branded a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union,
the PKK has fought Ankara since 1984 and recently stepped up violence in
Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast after calling off a five-year unilateral
ceasefire in June last year.
Tehran and Ankara are linked by an accord calling on Iran to fight the PKK
and for Turkey to fight the People's Mujahedeen, an armed Iranian opposition
group based in Iraq.
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