Arrests: Turkish authorities detained three suspected Islamic militants yesterday in connection with a series of murders in the 1990s, the state Anatolian news agency said.
The arrests in Istanbul coincide with an EU summit in Brussels, where European leaders are debating whether to award overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey a date to begin membership talks.
Despite expectations that Turkey will begin EU negotiations next year, public opinion in Europe against admitting Turkey is strong, with critics saying a Muslim country of 70 million people does not belong in mainly Christian Europe.
Police this week began an operation against "the military and political wing of a religiously motivated terrorist organisation", Anatolian quoted Istanbul's security agency as saying, adding the group was described as Turkish Hizbullah.
The suspects, believed to belong to the group, are accused of killing four people in the southeastern cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin in 1992 and 1998. They are also accused of kidnappings and providing shelter to militants.
Hizbullah, which has no known links with Lebanon-based Hizbollah, was active in Turkey's mainly Kurdish south-east in the 1990s, when a separatist conflict raged between the leftist Kurdistan Workers Party and security forces.