Kurdish protestors clash with police

Police clashed with stone-throwing demonstrators across the country’s predominantly Kurdish south- east today during protests marking the 10th anniversary of a separatist rebel leader’s capture, state-run media said.

Police fired water cannons and tear gas to break up protests about the continued imprisonment of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Fighting broke out in Istanbul and across the south-east, including the region’s largest city of Diyarbakir, where a group of 1,500 people on an illegal march defied police warnings to disperse, private CNN-Turk television reported. At least three people, inluding two police officers, were hurt in clashes today.

The PKK has fought for autonomy in the region since 1984 and thousands have been killed. The US and the European Union regard the PKK as a terrorist group.

Ocalan was captured in Kenya in 1999 and returned to Turkey where he was sentenced to death for treason. His sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

He is the sole inmate of an island prison off Istanbul. His supporters have expressed concern about his health and want an end to his solitary confinement.