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Kurdish rebels claim blast in eastern Turkey

ANKARA, Sept 25, 2006 (AFP) - The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has claimed responsibility for a bomb blast at a police building in eastern Turkey at the weekend in which 17 people were wounded.

"The bomb attack on the Igdir police guest house in the evening of September 23 was carried out by our guerrilla units," said a brief statement on the web site of the PKK's armed wing, the HPG.

The bomb ripped through a truck parked outside the building in Igdir city, near the Armenian border, leaving 17 people, among them five police officers, injured.

The police have also blamed the PKK for the attack.

The rebels also claimed responsibility for a landmine explosion earlier Saturday on a railway in Elazig province, to the west, in which a freight train was derailed.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has notably stepped up violence this year after it called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.