A prosecutor in regional hub Diyarbakir ordered the search in Genc following a request from the family of Tuncay Sari, a young Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrilla killed in the 1990s but whose body has never been found.

Bones and clothes from around 30 unmarked graves will be sent to a forensic laboratory for analysis.

Similar excavations led to the opening last month of the trial in Diyarbakir of a Turkish colonel and six others for allegedly killing 20 Kurds at the peak of the PKK's conflict with Ankara during the 1990s.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.