1.
GV Military vehicles in Fasta.
0.19

2.
GV Group of police and PAN TO jeep and troops.
0.32

3.
GV Group armed troops.
0.45

4.
GV Nurses and ambulance PAN TO troops.
0.53

5.
GV Slogans on wall.
1.07

6.
GV Troops walking in street.
1.22

7.
SV Patrol arresting dissidents.
1.25

8.
GV Patrol walking down street.
1.38

9.
SV Children PAN TO patrol.
1.47

10.
GV Patrol in street.
1.54




Initials JS/





Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: A military operation in Fatsa, a city on Turkey's Black Sea coast, has cleared the city of leftist militants who've been running it under people's committees with no appeal to the courts.

SYNOPSIS: Two motorised regiments surrounded the city early on Friday (11 July) morning and then entered it. Troops arrested three hundred people including Fatsa's mayor, Fikri Sonmez, the leader of the militants.

The militants had set up eleven people's courts and had been administering Fatsa directly. Even the Ankara government had no influence in the area. There had been reports of violence in Fatsa, and the government was growing impatient with increasing reports of towns r districts controlled by extremist groups with police unable to enter.

The troops who included specially-trained anti-guerrilla units met with no resistance. The three hundred people they arrested were taken away for interrogation.

The Opposition Leader, and former Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, says Turkey is facing the threat of civil war. He says extremists want to turn Turkey into a Vietnam, a Yemen or a Korea.

After the troops took over Fatsa, a 24-hour curfew was imposed, military patrols fanned out through the city and house to house searches were made. The extremists are just one of the troubles facing the Turkish government. Parliament has been voting on a new national president for almost four months and all but emergency legislation has been shelved, adding to the country's political and economic woes.