Bombs not expected to disrupt Nato summit

TURKEY: A bomb on a crowded Istanbul bus killed three people yesterday, days before President George Bush visits Turkey and …

TURKEY: A bomb on a crowded Istanbul bus killed three people yesterday, days before President George Bush visits Turkey and a Nato summit of heads of state convenes in the city.

Hours earlier a similar bomb had exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in Ankara where President Bush is due to stay tomorrow night after leaving Ireland, before flying to Istanbul for the summit.

The White House said the President's schedule had not changed. Mr Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said the bombings seemed to be the work of "terrorists" who intended to disrupt the summit.

The explosions heightened concerns about security for the summit, which a number of other Nato leaders, including Mr Tony Blair and President Jacques Chirac of France are due to attend.

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The Turkish government is taking unprecedented security measures to prevent terrorists attacking the summit next Monday and Tuedsday.

A left-wing group claimed responsibility for the attack in Ankara, which injured three people, including two policemen.

A 26-year-old woman on the Istanbul bus was carrying the device, which was described as a "percussion bomb", to an unknown destination when it exploded in her lap by mistake, the governor of Istanbul, Mr Muammer Guler, said. The woman and two other people sitting near her were killed and 25 passengers were wounded.

"The passengers on the bus were definitely not the targets," the governor said. He said the device was of a type meant to be set off in the open air to cause an explosion but no loss of life.

As part of their security precautions, the Turkish authorities are to close parts of central Istanbul from tomorrow to everyone without special passes.

Car bombs outside the British consulate and HSBC Bank's headquarters in Istanbul killed more than 60 people last year. After a lull of several months the Kurdish independence movement, PKK, has renewed attacks on Turkish military targets.

During the summit, Nato members are likely to agree to a request from Iraq's interim government to train its security forces, the alliance's Secretary-General, Mr Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, confirmed yesterday.

"My impression is that it might very well be possible that allied leaders decide in Istanbul on some form of training," Mr de Hoop Scheffer said.

Such a task would fall far short of Washington's original hope, thwarted by opposition from France and Germany, that the 26-nation alliance would take command of a multinational stabilisation force in central Iraq.

Mr de Hoop Scheffer said he had received a letter from the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mr Iyad Allawi, whose interim government is due to be sworn in when the US-led occupation ends on June 30th, asking for "technical assistance" as well as training.

"What does it mean? I do not know," he said. "We just got the letter and we haven't even started to discuss the letter." He said Nato could train Iraqi security forces, including border guards, both inside and outside the country.

A German government official said yesterday Germany was willing to train Iraqi military forces but only on a very limited scale and outside Iraq, preferably in Germany. Italy is also offering to train Iraqi military, either in Italy or Iraq.

The summit will also focus on Nato's peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan and the drive to expand it into unruly provinces ahead of September's elections. Leaders are expected to meet the Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai, on the second day of their summit.