TURKEY PLANS TO DECREASE TROOPS IN SOUTHEAST

ANKARA [MENL] -- Turkey plans to restructure and decrease its forces in thelong-troubled southeastern Kurdish region. The plan includes a transfer of Turkish military troops away fromcounter-insurgency operations and their replacement by police andparamilitary forces. The redeployment is meant to reduce the military budgetamid the nation's fiscal crisis and respond to European Union criticism overits treatment of the Kurdish minority.