ANKARA, Aug 28 (AFP) - 22h00 - A young man died in hospital after being shot during clashes Sunday, in southeastern Turkey, between police and demonstrators trying to claim the bodies of six Kurdish separatist rebels killed in fighting earlier this week, the Anatolia news agency reported.The clashes occurred in the city of Batman when the demonstrators, from the main Kurdish party DEHAP and two other local civic bodies, ignored police orders to disperse and began marching towards the hospital where the bodies of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels were being kept, the report said.

When the group staged a sit-in near the hospital, police used water cannons and pepper gas against the protestors, who retaliated by pelting officers with stones.

Several demonstrators were arrested during the clash with police, who fired warning shots into the air. Local sources said there were also claims that some of the demonstrators had used firearms.

A 25-year-old man, identified by the agency as Hasan Is, died in hospital from a gunshot wound sustained during the fighting with the police but it was not immediately clear who had shot him.

The six PKK rebels, whose bodies were claimed by demonstrators, were killed during three days of fighting with Turkish security forces between August 25 and 27 near the town of Besiri in the province of Batman, bearing the same name as the city.

Violence has sharply increased in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast since June 2004 when the PKK called off a five-year unilateral truce on the grounds that government moves to expand the rights of the Kurdish population were insufficient.

The PKK's political wing, KONGRA-GEL, announced a fresh one-month unilateral ceasefire on August 19 but underlined that the rebels would continue to defend themselves in the face of Turkish military operations.

KONGRA-GEL said it was encouraged to announce the truce following a landmark pledge by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the month to resolve the conflict with "more democracy".

The Turkish army has brushed aside the rebels' truce, vowing to press ahead with the struggle to crush the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The conflict with the rebels has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984, the year PKK militants first took up arms in search of self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.