Anger as Turkey buries soldiers, government edgy

By Gareth Jones

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey on Tuesday buried 12 soldiers killed by Kurdish rebels in an outpouring of public grief and anger that unnerved the government and prompted it to ban broadcasts about the deaths.

Funerals, held in towns and cities across the Muslim nation of 75 million, turned into protest rallies with mourners chanting slogans against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is battling Turkish troops near the Iraqi border.

The dead men were mostly conscripts in their early 20s doing their compulsory military service. They were laid to rest in a sea of red and white Turkish flags.

The funerals and other protests have increased pressure on the government to send troops across the border into northern Iraq where an estimated 3,000 rebels are hiding, though Ankara says it still hopes diplomacy will prevail.

As newspapers reported clashes between pro- and anti-PKK students and other sporadic acts of violence, Turkish President Abdullah Gul appealed for public calm and restraint.

"However great the destruction caused by terrorism, the struggle against terrorism can be waged by legal means and only by the state," Gul said in a statement.

The government, keen to avoid further inflaming public opinion, imposed a ban on all media broadcasts concerning the deaths of the 12 soldiers, whose pictures and life stories have featured prominently in the newspapers.

RTUK, the state body that oversees television and radio in Turkey, said the ban was necessary because broadcasting news about the deaths "hurts the psychology of society and public order and creates an image of the security forces as weak".