"The verdict came in a rather short time. This is definitely positive ... compared to other cases that have been going on for years," Hansjoerg Kretschmer, the representative of the European Commission in Turkey, told the daily Milliyet.

"It is also very important that the two soldiers were tried in a civilian court," he said. "This is closely related to civilian control over the military, on which we place great importance in the EU process."

Kretschmer said it was "very encouraging" that the court rendered its verdict with "no political influence" from either government or army.

After just four hearings, a court in the eastern city of Van on Monday sentenced two gendarme sergeants to 39 years and five months each for the November 9 bombing of a bookstore in Semdinli, in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

The attack against the shop owned by a former Kurdish rebel killed one person and sparked deadly riots in the remote town near Turkey's borders with Iraq and Iran.

The indictment charged that the defendants were rogue elements within the security forces targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led a bloody campaign since 1984 for Kurdish self-rule in the region.

The trial was widely seen as a test for Ankara to prove its commitment to the supremacy of the law as part of its efforts to join the European Union.

Many of the far-reaching reforms Ankara has undertaken over the past several years to bring Turkey in line with EU democracy norms have aimed to limit the army's powers and its role in political decision making.

In a separate development, the Van court on Tuesday accused the owner of the bombed bookstore, Seferi Yilmaz, of being a PKK member, basing itself on testimony by a Kurdish rebel turned informer, judicial sources said.

It was not clear when his trial would begin.

During the Van trial, the two soldiers had denied bombing the bookstore and said they were following Yilmaz because of his alleged links with PKK rebels.