By applying loop quantum gravity techniques to 3D gravity with a positive cosmological constant $Lambda$, we show how the local gauge symmetry of the theory, encoded in the constraint algebra, acquires the quantum group structure of $so_q(4)$, with $ q = exp{(ihbar sqrt{Lambda}/2kappa)}$. By means of an Inonu-Wigner contraction of the quantum group bi-algebra, keeping $kappa$ finite, we obtain the kappa-Poincare algebra of the flat quantum space-time symmetries.
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