ANKARA, Aug 22 (AFP) - Security forces in the southeastern Turkish city of Mardin have arrested a suspected Kurdish rebel who allegedly planned to carry out bomb attacks in big cities, a senior local official said Sunday.
The suspect was believed to be a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), now known as KONGRA-GEL, who had been ordered to plant bombs in urban centres, Mardin governor Temel Kocaklar said in a brief written statement.
He did not say when the suspect was arrested.
The PKK has been fighting the Ankara government since 1984 for Kurdish self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast.
The group announced a unilateral ceasefire in 1999, but called off the truce in June this year, threatening to carry out attacks on touristic and economic targets across the country.
Police last week blamed the group for bomb attacks on two Istanbul hotels, in which two people were killed and 11 others, mostly foreigners, injured.