
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 4, 1993                   TAG: 9307040062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ANKARA, TURKEY                                LENGTH: Short

FUNDAMENTALIST RIOT ROCKS TURKEY

Officials vowed Saturday that Turkey would not be diverted from its secular course by Islamic extremist violence such as the riot that killed 35 people a day earlier.

Troops patrolled the streets of Sivas, 275 miles east of Ankara, enforcing a 24-hour curfew in the city of 800,000. It was imposed after extremists torched a hotel there that was hosting a conference of writers and leftist intellectuals, killing the 35 and injuring 60.

Officials said the extremists were enraged by the comments of one of the guests, a newspaper editor who had reportedly told the conference that the age of the Koran had passed.

The attack was the worst case of Muslim extremist violence in modern Turkish history and showed that the nation that straddles Europe and the Near East is not immune from the fundamentalist violence that has hit Egypt, Algeria and other countries. - Associated Press

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB