DATE=10/21/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=TURKEY / ATTACK (L-ONLY) CQ
NUMBER=2-255322
BYLINE=AMBERIN ZAMAN
DATELINE=ANKARA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A leading pro-secular Turkish writer and
academic has been killed in a bomb explosion outside
his Ankara home. Amberin Zaman has this report.
TEXT: Ahmet Taner Kislali died after a bomb, which
was placed on his car in a plastic bag, exploded as he
reached for it. Mr. Kislali was declared dead
upon arrival at Ankara's Bayindir hospital.
/// OPT /// A shadowy armed Islamic militant group
known as the Islamic Eastern Great Raiders Front is
believed to have claimed responsibility for the
attack. But Turkish officials decline to confirm the
reports. /// END OPT ///
Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit condemned the
attack, saying it targeted Turkey's secular regime.
He said such acts of madness would not alter Turkey's
pro-secular course.
Mr. Kislali wrote a column for the staunchly pro-
secular daily newspaper, "Cumhuriyet". The
newspaper's editor in chief, Hikmet Cetinkaya, said he
received an anonymous phone call identifying the
assailant as a woman belonging to the Islamic Eastern
Great Raiders Front.
Mr. Cetinkaya said he and his fellow journalists,
including Mr. Kislali, frequently receive death
threats from Islamic radical groups. "Cumhuriyet"'s
top investigative journalist, Ugur Mumcu, was murdered
in a 1993 car-bomb attack.
In the last column he wrote before his death, Mr.
Kislali denounced a prominent Islamic leader, Mehmet
Kutlular, for blaming Turkey's rigidly pro-secular
armed forces for a devastating August earthquake,
which killed thousands. During a recent sermon, the
Islamic leader described the earthquake as divine
retribution for the army's pro-secular policies,
The leader of the Islam-based Virtue Party, Recai
Kutan, swiftly condemned Mr. Kislali's murder,
describing it as -- a vicious act aimed at
destabilizing the country. (SIGNED)
NEB/AZ/GE/LTD/RAE
21-Oct-1999 10:14 AM EDT (21-Oct-1999 1414 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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