ANKARA The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has shot down a military helicopter in southeastern Turkey, killing 20 soldiers, a German-based Kurdish news agency DEM said Monday, but a senior Turkish official branded the report as baseless. There is no such thing. This is a PKK lie, Hakki Uzun, Deputy to the regional governor in Diyarbakir, told AFP in a telephone interview.

The governor, Aydin Aslan, has powers of emergency rule over six southeastern provinces where there is Kurdish unrest. DEM had said in a report earlier that the helicopter was downed near Mount Cilo in Hakkari province, on Turkey's border with Iran and Iraq, but did not give the time of the incident. The helicopter, a Sikorsky, had been taking part in an operation launched Friday near Mount Cilo, DEM added.

PKK rebels have brought down three Turkish army helicopters since they launched an armed campaign in 1984 for Kurdish self-rule on Turkish territory. The PKK has recently called for intensifying its war against Turkey at a party congress after their leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and hauled to Turkey to face trial for treason. We call on all our people in Northern Kurdistan and in the Turkish towns to fight with any means in a popular uprising to defeat the Turkish state system, a statement by the PKK's political wing, the Ernk, said Friday. (AFP)