Greeks get blame for envoy's murder

GUNMEN killed a senior Turkish diplomat in Athens yesterday, triggering a strong protest from Ankara and a demand for action to end attacks that have now killed three of its envoys since 1980.

The Turkish embassy's counsellor, Haluk Sipahioglu, 46, was ambushed by three gunmen as he left for work from his home in the leafy coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro. Turkish state television said he was hit six times in the chest and abdomen after he got into his car. He survived the attack but died in hospital later. He underwent surgery but had lost too much blood to be saved. The gunmen escaped in heavy traffic.

In Ankara, the Turkish Foreign Ministry went into angry shock. Thirty-four of its diplomats have been killed by Armenian, Greek and other terrorists since 1973. In Greece alone, terrorists killed an administrative attache and his daughter in 1980 and, in 1991, the deputy press attache. In the same year, three more Turkish officials were wounded in attacks.

The Greek Foreign Minister quickly met his Turkish counterpart at a Mediterrenean regional conference in Alexandria, Egypt, to present his condolences and say that he believed it was the work of the November 17 terrorist cell. Since 1975, November 17 has claimed the killings of 20 Greek, American and Turkish figures. The left-wing Greek insurgent group has said its attacks on Turks were because of Turkey's 'expansionism' and its policies on divided Cyprus.

'For 20 years this organisation has been torturing Greece . . . sometimes even I think there is too much democracy, a tendency to anarchy,' said Stavros Stathulopulos, spokesman for the Greek embassy in Ankara, saying that the weapon - a .45 pistol - was the same as used in previous November 17 attacks.

Mr Stathulopulos said he hoped Turkish-Greek relations would not be affected, poisoned as they are by centuries of conflict, differences over Cyprus, ethnic minority problems and hair-raising games between fighter pilots testing rival claims to territorial and air rights over the Aegean Sea.

Turkey was not in a mood to be easily appeased yesterday, however. The Greek ambassador was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry to hear demands for proper security for Turkey's diplomats who are already angered by separatist Turkish Kurds setting up offices in Greece.

'Even if you indirectly support terrorist activities, things will turn bad on you,' said a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ferhat Ataman. 'Certain circles in Greece support the PKK (Turkish Kurd rebels), especially when it comes to bombing Turkish tourist resorts.'

Turkish newspapers allege that militant Kurds have confessed to being trained in Greece for anti- tourist bombings. Just last month, explosions killed a British woman and wounded another 20 people - half of them foreigners. Since such attacks started last year, the number of tourists visiting Turkey has fallen off markedly.

Evidence of a Kurdish link to yesterday's attack in Greece is slight, despite Turkish charges that the rebels were probably involved. Witnesses reported that the attack was carried out by men of a swarthy, Kurdish complexion.

Kurdish militants are increasingly active in Greece, and the PKK has a strong presence. About 50 Kurdish protesters occupied the entrance of the German embassy in Athens for three hours yesterday, spraying PKK slogans to protest about the apparently accidental killing by German police of a Kurdish militant last week.