Kurdish rebels barred from city

DIYARBAKIR (Reuter) - Security forces yesterday blocked all roads to the rebel-hit south-eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, nerve-centre of a security apparatus that is fighting rebels of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Diyarbakir's deputy provincial governor, Nafiz Kayali, told the Anatolian news agency that the authorities would not allow pro-PKK protests.

Local journalists said such activity in the mainly Kurdish-populated city of 300,000 people was expected to coincide with the anniversary next Saturday of the first big rebel attack on two regional towns, that launched the insurgency in 1984. Nearly 4,400 people have died in Turkey during the PKK's armed struggle for an independent Kurdish state.