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30 Arrested In Turkey For Links To Kurdish Rebels - Report

ANKARA (AFP)--Turkish authorities arrested around 30 people, most of them teachers, Thursday in a new sweep across the country against people with suspected links to Kurdish rebels, Anatolia news agency reported.

Police found material belonging to the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, during searches of suspects' homes, the agency said.

The arrests took place in Ankara, Istanbul, the eastern town of Van and the western towns of Izmir and Manisa.

Last month dozens of people were arrested over their suspected collusion with the PKK in Turkey's majority-Kurdish southeast. Many of those arrested in April included members of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish political party, the Party for a Democratic Society, or DTP, which holds 21 of the Turkish parliament's 550 seats.

The DTP could be banned by the constitutional court, which is currently investigating allegations it is cooperating with the PKK.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the world, has waged an armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish east and southeast since 1984, in a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.

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