ANKARA -- Kurdish rebels kidnapped four Afghan tourists from a bus in southeastern Turkey, bringing to eight the total number of tourists kidnapped in the past three days, officials said Monday.
The guerrillas also seized two Turkish passengers on the bus.
The kidnapping occurred late Sunday on a highway near Bahceci, a village in Batman province, where gunmen from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, stopped a bus, ordered four Afghan and two Turkish passengers off, and left with them undercover of darkness.
Saturday, the rebels seized three Swiss nationals -- Guiseppe Rezzenico, Nico Pianta and his wife Anna -- and Italian Angelo Palego in the eastern town of Dogubayazit, close to the Iranian border.
A statement issued by the pro-PKK news agency Kurd-Ha in Brussels said the kidnapped tourists were 'receiving guest treatment,' and 'are in good health.'
The rebels were reported to be still holding two German nationals, Albrecht Christoph Lehmann and Hentry Butler, and New Zealander Paul Thomson, kidnapped weeks earlier on the slopes of Mount Ararat, where the PKK are said to have a stronghold.
Kurd-Ha said the rebels demanded direct talks with the Turkish government for the release of the hostages.
The PKK launched its latest campaign of kidnapping tourists in early July, when they abducted two British tourists, one of whom also held Australian citizenship. Days later they kidnapped four French nationals, but released the six after about one month.
The PKK, which vowed in 1984 to set up an independent state for Turkey's estimated 10 million Kurds, began the latest kidnappings after announcing they would cripple the country's tourist industry.
In a separate incident during the weekend, PKK gunmen attacked a rural police post near the Iranian border, killing 18 troops and wounding 13.
The attack occurred as Turkish troops, backed by jets and helicopters, continued operations against the PKK in the mountains of Hakkari province, near the point where the borders of Turkey, Iran and Iraq meet.
Some 7,000 people, including troops, civilians and Kurdish guerrillas, have been killed since the PKK rebellion began nine years ago.
