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TUNCELI, Turkey, March 12 (Reuters) - Five bodies riddled with bullets have been found in a field in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast and police are searching for clues about the killers, officials said on Tuesday.
Unsolved killings have plagued the southeast for years, a region with a decades-long conflict with separatist guerrillas in some of Turkey's most remote areas.
One of the five corpses, all male, appeared from the clothing to be that of a guerrilla of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the other four were civilians, officials said.
The identity of the bodies, found in the Cizre region of Sirnak province on Monday, has not been established but they appeared to have been killed within the past month, the official said.
The PKK has denied any involvement in the deaths.
Officials said PKK rebels told villagers in Cizre where to find the bodies.
Violence between security forces and the PKK in the southeast of the country has dropped off dramatically since the rebels said they were abandoning their armed struggle for Kurdish self-rule in favour of peaceful political action.
The PKK move came shortly after the capture of their leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. But authorities see it as little more than a ruse for Ocalan to escape the death penalty.
More than 30,000 people have been killed during the conflict, which started in 1984.
The military says it is still determined to wipe the rebels out and carries out operations against them.
The southeastern region has also been scarred by scores of killings attributed to the Islamic radicals of the Hizbullah group. Blood feuds between families also sometimes claim lives.
08:12 03-12-02
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