Tensions ran high in Hakkari, near the Iraqi border, where the security forces stopped about 200 people from holding a march in support of Ocalan, who was captured in Kenya on February 15, 1999.

The demonstrators hurled stones at the police as the security forces responded with tear gas and fired warning shots in the air to disperse the crowd. Many shops had their windows broken.

Similar unrest broke out in Batman, to the east, where many shopkeepers joined the protests by keeping their businesses closed, a traditional expression of support for Ocalan and his separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

In Diyarbakir, the largest city of the region, riot police broke up several smaller demonstrations, while the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the country's main Kurdish political movement, hung a black flag on its building.

Turkish undercover agents, aided by US colleagues, captured Ocalan in Nairobi after the rebel chieftain left the Greek embassy there, where he had been offered refuge for several days while on the run.

He was flown to Turkey and sentenced to death for treason in June 1999. His sentence was later commuted to life in prison as Turkey abolished capital punishment as part of EU-sought reforms.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in the southeast.

Since December 16, Turkish warplanes have carried out five bombing raids on PKK positions in northern Iraq, where the group takes refuge.