Kurdish Rebels Warn Turkey to Abandon Rescue Operations

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels confirmed in a statement on Monday that they were holding the lawmaker Huseyin Aygun captive and warned Turkey to abandon its rescue operation.

"The lawmaker Huseyin Aygun has been detained by our fighters," rebels said in a statement given to the pro-Kurd news agency Firatnews.

"An operation has been launched which puts the life of the lawmaker in danger," the PKK said.

It was not only the rebels who called for the operations to be seized. Aygun’s family also asked the officials to be sensitive with the operations and to abandon them if the life of the lawmaker was at stake.

According to Aygun's aides, the PKK have promised to free the lawmaker "in a few days" without threatening his life, apparently seeing the abduction as a way of attracting public opinion to the Kurdish cause.

Turkey's Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said the PKK wanted to create a "sensation" in capturing the lawmaker before the anniversary on August 15 of the rebels' first armed operations 28 years ago, the Anatolia news agency reported.

"We are following this affair very closely," he added.

Augun, 42, has in the past called on the PKK to abandon their violent campaign.

Although Kurdish rebels frequently kidnap workers, soldiers and local authorities to bargain for the release of captured rebels, this marked the first time since PKK rebels began their battle for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984 that they have abducted a member of the Turkish parliament.

Last Sunday, Kurdish rebels stormed a Turkish army post on the Iraq border, triggering fighting that killed 22 people in the latest clash since Ankara unleashed a major offensive against the insurgents.

A series of similar assaults against troops in the Kurdish-dominated south-east prompted the army to launch an all-out offensive against PKK bases in the area last month.

At least 115 rebels have been killed since the offensive began on July 23, Turkish authorities said. The abductions might be a response on the part of the rebels, according to Turkish media.

The PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms in the southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.