- Title: TURKEY: HIGH SECURITY AHEAD OF NATO SUMMIT.
- Date: 25th June 2004
- Summary: (W5)ISTANBUL, TURKEY (JUNE 25, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. GV: GOOD SHOT ISTANBUL PORT 0.14 2. GV: AN ARMY SHIP ANCHORED ON THE BOSPHORUS 0.20 3. GV/PAN; A PAN OF THE 'SUMMIT VALLEY' 0.30 5. GV: POLICE BARRIERS IN FRONT OF THE SUMMIT CENTRE 0.35 4. GV/CU: FLAGS OUTSIDE SUMMIT VENUE, NATO SIGN (2 SHOTS) 0.45 5. GV/MV/CU: POLICE SEARCH CARS (4 SHOTS) 1.11 (W5)ISTANBUL, TURKEY (JUNE 24, 2004) (REUTERS) 6. POLICEGV/MV: SEARCHING BAGS IN TRAIN STATION (4 SHOTS) 1.34 (W5)ISTANBUL, TURKEY (RECENT) (REUTERS) 7. LV/GV: ARMY SPECIAL FORCES TRAINING (6 SHOTS) 2.36 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 10th July 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ISTANBUL,TURKEY
- Country: Turkey
- Reuters ID: LVA7PDSKS5YF7SEHFGZ4RTTXHDWF
- Story Text: Security is high in Istanbul ahead of a NATO summit.
Security is high in Istanbul city ahead of the NATO
summit which will be held there on June 28 with the
attendance of U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and about 40 other leaders of countries.
Istanbul police are undertaking heavy security
measures all over the city and especially in the so-called
"summit valley", where the meetings will take place.
Nearly 23,000 police officers will patrol the city
during the summit. The security force will include 7,000
riot police.
The police will be responsible for the security on
ground and Turkish air and naval forces will be on guard in
the air and at sea. The transit of ships from the Bosphorus
strait will be suspended during the summit.
Bush is due to spend Saturday (JUne 26) night in Ankara
before talks on Sunday (June 27) with Turkish Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
Bush flies to Istanbul on Sunday to attend the summit with
40 other world leaders.
Turkish officials say they expect large demonstrations
in Ankara, Istanbul and other cities in the coming days
against both Bush's visit and the NATO summit.
A bus bomb in Istanbul which killed four people on
Thursday (June 24), just days before the city hosts the
NATO summit has raised security concerns ahead of Bush's
visit to Ankara and next week's summit.
Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler told reporters they had
identified the woman bomber as Semiran Polat, born in 1975
in the mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Tunceli.
Police have identified the organisation behind the bombing,
Guler said, but he would not name the group.
"We know the organisation. It is an illegal leftist
group with Marxist leanings. They have attempted such
actions in the past," Guler said at a news conference.
Guler said earlier that the bus was not the target and
the bomb had gone off by a mistake.
No one has claimed responsibility.
Turkey has taken massive security measures for the
meeting of more than 40 world leaders, fearing a repeat of
the kind of violence in November when suicide bombings
killed more than 60 people.
Al Qaeda and a Turkish cell claimed responsibility for
those attacks which targeted Jewish and British sites.
Besides Islamic militants and Kurdish separatists, a
number of left-wing factions are active in Turkey. A
Europe-wide security operation in April targeted the
largest of these, the Revolutionary People's Liberation
Front-Party (DHKP-C). It was behind suicide attacks in 2001
and 2003.
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