November 12, 2007 (LPAC)--PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) terrorists have kidnapped seven people, including two village guards in the eastern Turkey province of Van. The PKK'ers blocked a bridge leading to the village of Ogulveren near the border with Iran and kidnapped the two guards and five other young men late on Sunday.

In response, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Hosseini said on Sunday that Iranian security and military forces were pursuing terrorist grouplets in border regions, it was reported by IRNA. This coheres with earlier reports that the PKK has dispersed its members into Iran in an effort to escape from the coordinated military crackdown that was promised by President Bush to the Turkish Prime Minister, in northern Iraq. Abdullah Ocalan, a former PKK leader, and brother of the imprisoned PKK chief, told AFP that over the past month "thousands of PKK members have crossed into Iran." He also said PKK'ers were receiving support from Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

At the same time, a Kurdish delegation is in Turkey for talks on the PKK crisis. Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Saltanov, stated at a seminar on the dialogue of civilizations and the Middle East held in St. Petersburg, Russia that Russia condemned PKK violence. This was reported to Cihan news agency, and picked up by Zaman.