Interior Minister Beşir Atalay has said a violent quarrel in the city of İnegöl in Bursa province on Sunday was neither politically nor ideologically motivated, underlining that it was a spontaneous incident rather than a planned one.

Atalay traveled to İnegöl yesterday with National Police Chief Oğuz Kağan Köksal to meet with local authorities and civil society groups about Sunday's unrest. Atalay called a press conference at the İnegöl municipal building after his meeting with Mayor Alinur Aktaş. Noting that he had discussed the issue with the local authorities, Atalay said he could say in the light of the information he received that the incident was an ordinary quarrel that could be witnessed anywhere in Turkey, dismissing claims that the incident was an ethnic clash between Kurds and Turks.“I want to underline that there are no political or ideological motives behind this incident. It took place totally spontaneously. This is not an incident which was planned beforehand. This is one of our initial findings. It is all a quarrel between two bus drivers,” Atalay said. On Sunday in İnegöl, four individuals were injured and four police vehicles were set ablaze following a quarrel between two groups. An argument in a small coffeehouse turned violent when three individuals armed with knives and sticks attacked several people.Locals said the argument was a result of animosity between two bus drivers, one of them from southeastern Turkey. As families of the wounded gathered at the İnegöl Police Station, false reports that some of the wounded had died came from the hospital.TSK responsible for obeying court orders involving serving officersInterior Minister Beşir Atalay, who appeared in the same photo as a suspected coup general that was taken during a funeral on Tuesday, has said the National Police Department has no authority to enforce a court order issued for officers on active duty. Atalay and Gen. Nejat Bek, the commander of the 6th Army Corps, were both present at a funeral held on Tuesday for four police officers killed in a terrorist attack in Hatay on Monday night. The general is currently a suspect in the ongoing investigation into a military coup plan, titled the Sledgehammer Security Operation Plan, and an İstanbul court decided last week to arrest him along with 101 other officers. “Responsibility lies with the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] to obey a court decision involving officers on active duty,” Atalay told reporters during a visit to Bursa's İnegöl district yesterday. Newspapers ran photos from the funeral yesterday showing Atalay and Bek side by side. İstanbul Today's Zaman A lynch mob of hundreds of people then attacked the town's police department building with rocks, demanding that the police hand over the attackers. “The locals were provoked by some false news reports. They were sent to the police department building with the false information that Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK] terrorists had killed locals. Some among the group provoked the people and attacked the building as well as police vehicles,” he said.Provocation thought to be behind Dörtyol eventsMeanwhile, tension has eased in Hatay's Dörtyol district, where there had also been unrest since Monday, although the reason behind the unrest in the district has yet to become clear.Four officers were killed in a terrorist attack on a police vehicle in Hatay's Dörtyol district on Monday night, raising the already-high tension in the area, while a nationalist group set the district's pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party's (BDP) office ablaze and chanted slogans against the terrorist PKK. Shorty after the attack, tension rose in the city. Some residents who heard that a number of suspects had been detained after the attack gathered in front of the Dörtyol Police Department, demanding that the suspects be handed over to them.The group, which continued to grow, ignored calls from officials and police officers to disperse. Members of the group described themselves as Idealists, nationalist youths associated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The group then marched to the district's BDP office and set fire to the fourth floor of the building where the BDP office is located. The crowd watched the building burn and chanted slogans against the terrorist PKK.Security officials say locals were provoked, as many young people were asked to take to the streets via SMS messages and phone calls. There were reportedly individuals coming from Osmaniye, Erzin and other neighboring cities among the nearly 200 people who gathered in front of the police department. The police, tipped off that the crowd was planning to raid the Kurdish-dominated Yeşil neighborhood, tightened security measures around the neighborhood and blocked the group.Observers expressed concerns that more provocations and terrorist attacks, including assassinations of prominent figures and more conflict incited between Kurds and Turks, may continue until the Sept. 12 referendum, when the nation will vote on a constitutional amendment package approved by Parliament in May.The PKK, which is believed to be behind the attack on the police vehicle, is known to be staunchly opposed to the package. It has increased its bloody attacks on the military to urge people to vote against the constitutional changes in the referendum. To most observers, the tension incited between Kurds and Turks can also be linked to the efforts of Ergenekon, a terrorist organization aiming to topple the government by fomenting unrest among the public in order to engineer a military coup.Bayram Baysal, a local storeowner whose shop was attacked in Dörtyol, said he could not understand why those events had taken place in the city. “We are just trying to earn a living. I cannot understand why they attacked our shops. There have been no similar events before. We were living here in peace and brotherhood. I believe that we will continue to do so,” he said.Tension was still high in the district on Tuesday night, with some groups continuing to gather in the city center and hold demonstrations to protest the killings of the police officers in spite of a call by Hatay Governor Mehmet Celalettin Lekesiz, who went to Dörtyol late Tuesday, for locals to stay in their homes until tension eases in the district. Police had to use pepper gas to contain the protestors, who ignored the warnings of the police. Forty people have been detained by the police so far in the aftermath of the incidents. 29 July 2010, ThursdayTODAY'S ZAMAN WITH WIRES  İSTANBUL