The charges against Hilmi Aydogdu, the provincial chairman of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Diyarbakir, came after the media quoted him as saying late last month that Turkey's Kurds would "consider a Turkish attack on Kirkuk as an attack on Diyarbakir."

The indictment asked for up to three years in jail for Aydogdu on charges of "openly inciting hatred" on the basis of racial differences.

Aydogdu was jailed pending trial on February 23 during the course of the prosecutor's investigation.

His lawyer said he expected the trial to begin next month.

Turkey has issued harsh warnings over the future of the ethnically mixed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, which the Iraqi Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous region.

The city is also home to Arabs and Turkish-backed Turkmens.

Ankara is worried that Kurdish control of Kirkuk's oil reserves will boost what it sees as Kurdish aspirations to break away from Baghdad.

Kurdish independence, it fears, could further fuel a bloody Kurdish insurgency led by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in adjoining southeast Turkey, which has already resulted in more than 37,000 deaths.

Aydogdu's remarks provoked a harsh reaction here at a time when Iraqi Kurds are accused of supporting the PKK, whose militants have long taken refuge in the mountains of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq.

The DTP is frequently accused of supporting the PKK. Several of its members have been prosecuted for links with the group, which is blacklisted by Ankara, the United States and the European Union.