The court in Van, eastern Turkey, convicted Metin Tekce, mayor of the mainly Kurdish city of Hakkari, on charges of "being a member of a terrorist organisation" and "spreading the propaganda of an illegal organisation," the sources said.

The ruling was referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by Ankara over the bloody campaign for self-rule it has waged in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast since 1984.

The case against Tekce was launched after he maintained that the PKK was not a terrorist group before a parliamentary commission investigating a shady bombing in Hakkari's Semdinli town in November 2005.

He belongs to the country's main Kurdish political movement, the Democratic Society Party, whose members have increasingly become the target of judicial action for links to the PKK in recent weeks.

Tekce was not present at Monday's hearing in Van and was said to be abroad. He can appeal the sentence.

The PKK's campaign in the southeast and Ankara's heavy-handed response have claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Under pressure from the European Union which it is seeking to join, Turkey has in recent years broadened Kurdish cultural freedoms. Kurdish activists, however, say the reforms are inadequate and have called on Ankara for a general amnesty for PKK militants to encourage them to end their armed struggle.