Kurdish man dies in clash with Turkish police

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - A Kurdish man was killed on Sunday during clashes with Turkish police in the southeastern city of Yuksekova, hospital officials said, in the second day of violence between Kurdish demonstrators and police.

Kurdish protestors hurled stones at security forces from behind a barricade they had erected in the centre of Yuksekova on Sunday, while police fired gas into the crowd.

The death in Yuksekova was caused by a bullet wound, hospital sources said.

Tensions are high in Turkey's mostly-Kurdish southeast as military operations against the PKK have continued after the military launched an eight-day operation into northern Iraq to wipe out PKK camps there.

The violence in Yuksekova began when police tried to break up celebrations of the ancient spring festival of Newroz, which security officials said were unauthorized.

On Saturday, some 80 Kurdish protestors and 23 policemen were injured, and nearly 200 demonstrators were taken into custody in various cities across southeastern Turkey.

One man died in the province of Van late on Saturday from a bullet injury sustained when gangs of protestors clashed with security forces, police said.

Newroz, Nevruz in Turkish, is celebrated in Iran, northern Iraq and central Asia as the beginning of spring. In Turkey it has been associated with Turkey's large Kurdish population in the southeastern part of the country.

It is often a flashpoint for clashes between Turkish security forces and supporters of the PKK, which took up arms in 1984 to make a Kurdish ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.

Some 40,000 people have died in violence between the PKK and Turkey's military since then.

(Reporting by Seyhmus Cakan, editing by Thomas Grove and Mary Gabriel)