The two men were suspected of collaborating with the alleged assailants, who were charged the day before over Monday's carnage in the small village of Bilge in Mardin province.

The carnage, which sent shockwaves across Turkey, is believed to have been motivated by long-running hostilities between rival families in the village.

The suspects all hailed from Bilge and were related to some of the victims, who included six children and 16 women, three of them pregnant.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay said Wednesday "a succession of events over the years" led to the massacre, with "one important reason that accelerated the whole process". He declined to elaborate.

Local villagers spoke of a dispute over land, an unpaid debt and objections to the marriage of the couple, which also perished in the attack.

In a major embarrassment for Ankara, the suspected gunmen included members of the "village guard" -- a Kurdish militia recruited by the government to help in the fight against separatist Kurdish rebels in the southeast -- and used government-supplied weapons in the carnage.

Even though village guards have proved useful in helping the army against rebels, there have been mounting calls for the dissolution of the force after its members were implicated in a series of crimes such as drug smuggling, rape, kidnappings and murder.

In Monday's attack, masked gunmen stormed into the village square and opened fire on the crowd just after a Muslim preacher had completed the wedding ceremony, according to witnesses.

The assailants then raided several houses before escaping in the dark amid a sandstorm, they said.

Some 70 children lost one or both parents in the attack.

Security measures were beefed up around the houses of the suspects against possible reprisals against their families, but several of them already left the village in fear of their lives.

Settling disputes by gun and blood feuds are frequent in Turkey's Kurdish-populated regions, where feudal traditions persist and illiteracy is high.