Some 150 officers including police mobile unit members, backed by a helicopter swooped in on a resort in the southwestern Dutch town of Ellemeet at 6:00 am (0500 GMT), it said in a statement.

"Police this morning... broke up a secret meeting of the PKK. Fifty-five participants at a holiday park were arrested," it said.

The arrests follow a tip-off by the Dutch secret service. The clandestine meeting started on Friday and was expected to last a week.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community including the Netherlands, where it was banned it in 2007.

In the Netherlands "the PKK recruits young Kurds, some of whom are under-aged, for their armed struggle against the Turkish army," prosecutors said.

The PKK took up arms for Kurdish independence in southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.