About 40,000 people attended a rally organised by the Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) to denounce legal action seeking the group's closure.

The rally in Diyarbakir, the largest city of the mainly Kurdish southeast, turned ugly when about 1,000 protestors marched towards the office of a nationalist opposition party and hurled stones at the building and security forces.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and detained several people.

Demonstrators shouted slogans in favour of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, brandishing portraits of the rebel chief and flags of green, yellow and red, the traditional Kurdish colours.

"The youth are Apo's guards," the participants chanted at the rally, using Ocalan's nickname. "The PKK is the people, the people are here," they shouted.

Turkey's chief prosecutor last week asked the Constitutional Court to outlaw the DTP, arguing that the party, through its links with the PKK, had become threat to the country's unity.

The DTP holds 20 seats in the 550-member Turkish parliament.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly urged the party to sever its alleged links with the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.

The PKK has waged a bloody campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Faced with mounting rebel violence, the government has threatened military action in neighbouring northern Iraq, where the PKK has bases, if the United States and Iraq fail to curb the group.