Kurdish city explosion kills one

Conservatives may hold key in Turkish vote

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, April 11, (Agencies): An explosion in a police compound in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir killed one person and wounded several others on Tuesday, days ahead of a national referendum, but the interior minister appeared to rule out foul play.

The blast, which caused part of the police compound’s roof to collapse, occurred during the repair of an armoured vehicle, the Diyarbakir governor’s office said. It said one person had died in hospital and the cause of the blast was unknown.

Diyarbakir is the largest city in Turkey’s southeast, where Kurdish PKK militants have fought an insurgency for more than three decades to press demands for Kurdish autonomy. Violence has flared since a ceasefire collapsed in July 2015.

But Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the explosion, which sent a large plume of smoke over surrounding buildings and left a crater in the ground, appeared to have been an accident.

“The blast was in a part of the building for riot police, where maintenance is carried out on vehicles,” he was quoted by broadcaster CNN Turk as saying during a speech in Istanbul.

Trapped

“At the moment, it seems there is no outside interference, and the explosion came from the vehicle under repair. One person is trapped under the wreckage,” he said.

The explosion came ahead of a hotly contested referendum on Sunday on broadening President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers, a constitutional change opposed by many in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.

The blast was in the central, largely residential district of Baglar, where a car bombing by suspected PKK militants wounded scores of people last November.

One repair worker, who was trapped beneath the debris, later died in a hospital, the Diyarbakir governor’s office said. It said other people injured in the explosion were being treated in hospitals, but did not provide a number.

The cause of the explosion was under investigation. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu suggested, however, that the blast was caused by the repair work and was not the result of an attack.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said surrounding buildings and cars parked nearby were damaged in the blast.

Ambulances, police and rescue teams rushed to the scene in the city’s Baglar district, where thick smoke was seen rising into the air.

Turkey is on edge following a string of deadly bomb attacks carried out by Kurdish rebels or Islamic State militants in the past two years.

On banners hung from mosques, cultural centres, construction sites and bridges, President face punctuates the landscape along the highway to his ancestral home town of Rize on Turkey’s northern Black Sea coast.

High-rise apartment blocks have sprung up in a region long dependent on farming and fishing, and construction is about to start on Rize’s first airport, the sort of projects Erdogan and his supporters hope will help win him a referendum on Sunday on constitutional changes that would boost his powers.

Viewed with deepening suspicion by liberal Turks and some Western allies, who fear his Islamist ideals and authoritarian leadership are eroding Turkey’s secularism and democracy, here Erdogan is seen as a hero of the pious, patriotic, working man.

“He wasn’t one of these typical boys looking for fun and trouble,” Erdogan’s uncle, Ali Mutlu, 84, told Reuters in the town of Guneysu, where the president spent several summers at his family home as a teenager.

But Erdogan – Turkey’s most powerful leader since

founded the modern secular republic almost a century ago – is also its most divisive.

Polls show a close race, putting the “yes” vote slightly ahead, but with nearly half the country rejecting changes that would replace Turkey’s parliamentary system with the executive presidency Erdogan says is needed to give the country strength.

Even around Rize, there are pockets of dissent among conservative Turks who, while sharing the ideals of Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, are uncomfortable with the powers being amassed in one individual’s hands.

Flutters

A lone “no” banner flutters from an overpass near Guneysu, where the AKP won almost 90 percent of the vote at the last national election in November 2015.

Facing stiff competition from rivals in Istanbul, taxi hailing app Uber will offer free rides in the Turkish city on Sunday for voters taking part in the hotly contested referendum.

Turks will vote on whether to grant President sweeping powers and bring about one of the biggest changes in the country’s system of governance since the modern republic was founded almost a century ago.

“Uber will take everyone to the ballot boxes for free in the referendum being held on April 16,” the company said in a statement.

The offer only applies in Istanbul -- a city of 15 million people -- and is limited to two journeys worth up to 30 Turkish lira ($8.07) each on the uberXL service, referring to larger vehicles that hold up to six people.

Uber launched in Istanbul in 2014 and has faced competition from a popular home-grown taxi app, Bitaksi. It has previously offered a boat service aiming to capitalise on Istanbul’s infamous road congestion.