Clashes between masked youths and anti-riot police broke out at protests in the towns of Hakkari and Yuksekova against a wave of arrests last week of Kurdish officials with alleged links to Kurdish separatists.

The demonstrators hurled stones at the police who fired tear gas, the official said on condition of anonymity. Around 10 people were wounded and a dozen were arrested, the official said.

Turkish police rounded up on Thursday 31 people, including eight Kurdish mayors, as part of an investigation into the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its off-shoots.

Twenty-three were charged for links with Kurdish separatists, a judicial source said Saturday.

The PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community, has waged a bloody insurgency for Kurdish independence since 1984 which has claimed some 45,000 lives.

Kurdish protests have rattled Turkey since October, many over the prison conditions of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence, and the banning this month of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party.

Three people have been killed.

The Turkish government, which wants the country to join the European Union, has pledged reforms for the Kurdish minority in the hope of quelling the unrest.