The constitutional court's ruling Friday triggered violent protests in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast and unrest flared again Saturday.

Police used tear gas and water cannons in Hakkari, where an angry crowd pelted the security forces with stones and attempted to "lynch" a local police chief and an officer, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The crowd let the pair go after local politicians intervened, it said.

In Ankara, leaders of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which will formally cease to exist when the court ruling is published in the official gazette, convened to outline a strategy of action, a party spokesman said.

They were expected to decide whether to stick to a decision made before the court verdict, under which DTP lawmakers would resign from their parliamentary seats if the party was outlawed.

There were mounting calls on the DTP Saturday to keep its members in parliament to demonstrate commitment to a political solution to the Kurdish conflict.

The DTP was left with 19 members in the 550-seat legislatire after two deputies, including co-chair Ahmet Turk, were stripped of their seats as part of Friday's verdict.

The court outlawed the DTP on the grounds it was linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has led a bloody 25-year insurgency in the southeast and is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.

The ruling marred further a government initiative announced in August to expand Kurdish freedoms and erode popular support for the PKK.

"This ruling is a very heavy blow dealt on efforts to resolve the Kurdish question through peaceful and democratic means," the Vatan daily said Saturday.

It "will serve to stoke radicalism and the bill will be paid not only by the DTP and its supporters... but entire Turkey," it said.

The government's reform drive already faltered last week when one person was killed in violent Kurdish protests over claims that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan's prison conditions have deteriorated. The PKK responded by killing seven soldiers in an ambush in northern Turkey on Monday.

The DTP says it has "no organic links" with the PKK, but the party has refused to brand the PKK a terrorist group. Party members have often upheld the rebels and PKK banners have been a fixture at DTP rallies.

The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, voiced "concern" over DTP's closure, urging Ankara to amend its legislation on political parties in line with EU norms.