(AFP) – Jul 9, 2008

ANKARA (AFP) — Separatist Kurdish rebels have kidnapped three German mountaineers on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, a senior local official told the Anatolia news agency Wednesday.

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels seized the climbers, part of a group of 13 mountaineers, as they were ascending the mountain in Agri province, provincial governor Mehmet Cetin told Anatolia.

Five rebels came to the climbers' camp at an altitude of 3,200 metres and kidnapped three in protest at the German government's crackdown on PKK-affiliated bodies and its supporters in Germany, Cetin said.

Paramilitary troops have launched an operation to rescue the climbers, while the other climbers were brought down from the mountain.

Officials from the German embassy were not immediately available for comment.

Cetin did not say when the incident occurred, but the pro-Kurdish Firat news channel said the climbers were seized late Tuesday.

The PKK, which is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and several Western countries, has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-populated east and southeast since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Mount Ararat, situated close to the Iranian and Armenian borders, is the highest mountain in Turkey at 5,137 metres (16,853 feet) and is believed by many to be the final resting place of the Biblical Noah's Ark.

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