Mine explosion in Kurdish Iraq kills seven

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Seven people were killed and two injured when a pickup truck hit a land mine in northern Iraq. Officials said they believed the mine was planted by Kurdish rebels from Turkey.

The blast occurred Tuesday evening on a remote road in Barwari district northeast of the town of Dohuk, said Safeen Dizayee, the Ankara representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

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Dizayee accused Turkish guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, of planting the mine as part of a territorial dispute with the Iraqi Kurds.

The pickup was carrying civil engineers employed by the Kurdish administration to work on repopulating projects in the area. Some 350 villages in the area were evacuated during decade-old clashes in the region, Dizayee said.

"We are determined to push for rebuilding of the area," said Dizayee. "We really want the PKK to abandon the area and leave these people in peace."

About 5,000 PKK fighters have retreated to Iraq and Iran, abandoning their 15-year-old armed struggle for autonomy in southeastern Turkey, since the capture of the group's leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. Ocalan is on death row for treason and is awaiting the decision of a European court on his appeal.

Northern Iraq is an autonomous area dominated by Dizayee's KDP and its rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. As well as fighting each other, the factions have also joined Turkish military operations against the PKK.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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