The protestors gathered in the main square of Sirnak city -- one of the worst hit by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) violence -- under heavy security measures with snipers positioned on rooftops and an army helicopter flying overhead.

"Damn the PKK! Every Turk is born a soldier," chanted the crowd, waving red and white Turkish flags.

Local officials, soldiers in civilian clothes and village guards -- local Kurds paid and armed by the government to help fight the PKK -- were also present in the protest organised by an association set up by relatives of those slain in fighting with the rebels.

"The martyrs are immortal, the motherland is indivisible," read placards held up by the dozens of school children at the square.

The protest follows two attacks blamed on the PKK earlier this month near Sirnak which left respectively 13 soldiers and 12 other people -- mostly civilians, but also village guards -- dead.

"We are saying that enough blood has been shed and that we now want peace. We are here for this country," Rahmet Yomak, a 38-year-old native of Sirnak working at a local government-run foundation.

"We have suffered the most from the fighting. What do you think a man would end up feeling like when he constantly sees bloodshed, grief and slain soldiers?" said Yomak, holding on to his eight-year-old daughter.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, picked up arms for self-rule in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.

The conflict has ravaged the meager infrastructure and the mainstays of farming in the region, and forced mass migration into urban slum areas.

The clashes have also put a strain on relations between Turks and Kurds.

"When I tell people that I am from Sirnak, they look at me as if I am from the PKK," 27-year-old Nesrin Ozer said.

"We are here to show everyone that the people of Sirnak do not support terrorism. If we stand together, we can solve this problem," she said.

Faced with increasing PKK attacks, the Ankara government earlier this month obtained parliamentary authorisation to carry out cross-border strikes to hit at PKK bases in northern Iraq.

Turkey charges that some 3,500 PKK rebels enjoy freedom of movement and obtain weapons in the Kurdish-held autonomous north of Iraq for attacks across the border.