Agence France Presse — English
July 29, 2005 Friday 1:27 PM GMT
Iranian climber dies on Mount Ararat, others face prosecution
ANKARA
A 67-year-old Iranian mountain climber has died on Mount Ararat in
eastern Turkey and his fellow climbers are facing prosecution for
entering a banned military zone, the Anatolia news agency reported
Friday.
“There will be legal action against the Iranian mountaineers for
climbing in a banned area of Agri (Ararat) Mountain,” Turhan Turunc,
the chief prosecutor in the nearby town of Dogubayazit told Anatolia.
Mount Ararat, or Agri in Turkish, is located in eastern Turkey where
the borders of Iran, Armenia and the Azerbaijani exclave of
Nakhchivan meet.
Most of it is a banned military zone and climbers need special
permission from Turkish authorities for expeditions on the mountain.
The body of the dead climber, named as Ashker Baravan, was brought
down to Dogubayazit late Thursday by a local search-and-rescue team,
which launched an operation on the mountain after his 24 fellow
climbers alerted the authorities about the incident.
The man died at a height of some 5,000 meters, close to the mountain
summit, due to a yet unknown reason, Turunc said.