The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community.

Around 20 non-governmental organisations organised Saturday's rally, in which demonstrators carrying Turkish flags accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government of failing to do enough to fight the PKK.

They called for a Turkish military incursion into the Kurdish-dominated north of Iraq.

Banners also criticised the United States, accusing it of supporting Kurdish rebels in Iraq.

The Turkish army has been calling on the government since April to back a large scale cross-border operation against the Kurds, but the government has opted for diplomacy ahead of parliamentary elections due on July 22.

The United States, allied with Iraqi Kurds, is opposed to a Turkish incursion.

Tens of thousands of Turkish soldiers entered northern Iraq on around 20 occasions in the 1990s.

But since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Turkish army has only carried out only hot-pursuit type incursions to hunt down Kurdish rebels across the Iraqi border.

The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish east and southeast in 1984. The conflict has claimed some 37,000 lives.