The operation in Van city was carried out jointly by anti-terror police and intelligence units.

The detainees, among them two women, were suspected of plotting to assassinate Van Governor Niyazi Tanilir and other local officials on New Year's eve, the sources said.

The police also seized a pistol, explosives and about 200 bullets in the homes of the suspects.

There was no immediate word on whether the suspects belonged to any outlawed group.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, is active in the region and has attacked government targets in the past.

In July 2004, a car bomb blamed on the PKK blew up in downtown Van as the then governor drove by in a convoy, killing six people and wounding 23 others.

In a separate operation, a man suspected of aiding the PKK was detained in the province of Sirnak, on the border with Iraq, local officials said Monday.

In the home of the suspect, the police discovered a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of plastic explosives and a mobile telephone devised as a remote-control detonator, thought to have been destined for PKK attacks on the security forces.

Unrest in Turkey's mainly Kurdish eastern and southeastern provinces has markedly increased this year after the PKK called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the region in 1984.