The direction signs feature the names in both languages of villages around Diyarbakir, the largest city of the Kurdish-majority region which has been the scene of a bloody insurgency since 1984.

The initiative was spearheaded by the Diyarbakir municipality, which is held by the Democratic Society Party, Turkey's main Kurdish political movement.

Bilingual signs have been placed for 82 villages, but signs for Diyarbakir city remained only in Turkish, a municipality official told AFP.

The introduction of the signs followed Interior Minister Besir Atalay's announcement this month that settlements in the southeast would be allowed to return to their Kurdish names as part of a government plan to improve Kurdish rights, even though the laws have not been amended yet.

Although many Kurdish settlements were given Turkish names decades ago, the use of their original names by the local population has remained widespread in daily life.

Reviving the Kurdish names of some villages -- for instance, Heware Xas (Yesildalli) and Qubaxidir (Kabahidir) -- broke a taboo on using the letters X, Q and W, which exist in the Kurdish but not the Turkish alphabet.

Turkish courts have in the past rejected applications by Kurds to have their names officially registered with Kurdish spellings if they include those letters.

Using the Kurdish language in government affairs and politics remains banned. Atalay has said Ankara plans to allow Kurds to use their native tongue in political activities.

Eager to boost its EU membership bid, Turkey in the past several years has enacated a series of reforms to win over the Kurds, including the inauguration of a public television channel broadcasting in Kurdish, a language which was banned until the early 1990s.

The Islamist-rooted government hopes fresh gestures to the Kurds will erode popular support for the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, which took up arms against Ankara in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.