TURKEY: TURKISH MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS MARKED BY BOMB ATTACK OUTSIDE THE FORMER BYZANTINE CATHEDRAL OF HAGIA SOPHIA IN ISTANBUL

Record ID: 355437

  • Title: TURKEY: TURKISH MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS MARKED BY BOMB ATTACK OUTSIDE THE FORMER BYZANTINE CATHEDRAL OF HAGIA SOPHIA IN ISTANBUL
  • Date: 27th March 1994
  • Summary: ISTANBUL, TURKEY (MARCH 27, 1994) 1. GV CATHEDRAL/ POLICEMEN 0.06 2. GVS DAMAGE TO CAR AND STONE PILLAR/ PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND CAR 0.34 3. GVS GERMAN TOURIST, CRITICALLY WOUNDED, BEING WHEELED THROUGH HASKEI HOSPITAL 0.42 4. CUS DOCTORS EXAMINING GERMAN TOURIST'S HEAD (2 SHOTS) 0.52 5. GVS VARIOUS OF PEOPLE VOTING
  • Embargoed: 11th April 1994 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: ISTANBUL, TURKEY
  • City:
  • Country: Turkey
  • Reuters ID: LVA7EZ4XHHNDS88CSVU0XFSX0LBQ
  • Story Text: Turkey held municipal elections on Sunday (March 27) amid violence and the absence of the only legal Kurdish-based party.

    The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) marked polling day with a bomb attack outside one of Istanbul's best-known landmarks, the former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia, wounding three European tourists.

    Police said a German man had been badly hurt in the blast in the garden of the sixth-century church, now a museum. A Dutchman and a Spanish woman were slightly injured and left hospital.

    A hospital doctor said the 38-year-old German had been hit in one eye and it was not clear if he would lose the use of it.

    In the mainly Kurdish southeast, officials said polling had gone ahead despite a PKK call for a boycott and the absence of the only legal Kurdish-based party, the Democracy Party, which quit the campaign last month, citing intimidation.

    About 32 million voters were choosing mayors and local councils in the local elections, held every five years.

    Tansu Ciller, Turkey's first woman premier, has sworn to crush the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), but voters may punish her for this year's economic collapse which has wrecked business confidence and left the government scrambling to pay its bills.

    The lira has lost a third of its dollar value, interest rates have shot up and industry has slowed down. Turkey's foreign credit rating has slipped twice in three months.


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