The violence erupted Sunday and continued Monday in areas with significant Kurdish populations, Turkish media reported.

The outlawed PKK was founded in 1978 by Abdullah Ocalan, who was jailed for life for treason and separatism, and is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community.

In the worst of the clashes, around 300 demonstrators attacked a police station in Mersin, on the southern Mediterranean coast, with stones and Molotov cocktails on Sunday evening, the NTV news channel said.

A 16-year-old was shot in the chest and badly wounded, and protesters burned shops in the town, television reports said.

In Istanbul, demonstrators set fire to a bus in the Sultanbeyli district on the European side of the city overnight, without injuring anyone, Anatolia news agency reported.

Police also broke up a demonstration by young Kurds in the centre of Istanbul, according to the same agency, and violence flared in other Turkish towns with large Kurdish populations.

On Monday police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators in the Yuksekova area near the border with Iraq.

A dozen demonstrators were meanwhile detained in Siirt, another town in the southeast, where groups held "illegal" demonstrations, Anatolia reported.

The PKK took up arms in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.

It has gone from seeking full independence for the Kurdish region to calling for regional autonomy and better cultural rights for Kurds.

Ankara has recently announced measures aimed at improving Kurdish rights in the hope of undermining support for the party.