A Turkish riot policeman beats a demonstrator while trying to disperse a demonstration by pro-Kurdish activists yesterday in Istanbul. At least 18 people were injured and 70 others detained across Turkey.

DIYARBAKIR (AFP) - At least 18 people were injured and 70 others detained across Turkey yesterday when police clashed with Kurdish activists at demonstrations marking the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan six years ago.

The most troubled protest was in Diyarbakir, the central city of the mainly Kurdish southeast, where 15 people were hurt and 55 others taken into custody.

«End the isolation,» read banners held by a crowd of some 300 activists, referring to Ocalan's solitary confinement on a prison island in northwestern Turkey since his capture in Kenya on February 15, 1999.

Kurdish activists have long been calling for Ocalan's transfer to an ordinary jail, but their appeals have so far fallen on deaf ears in Ankara.

Police moved on the demonstrators using truncheons and tear gas when they refused to disperse after reading out a press statement and demanded also to stage a march and a sit-in. The injured included policemen hurt by stones hurled by the crowd.

In Istanbul, riot police sprayed pepper gas on a crowd of several hundred people who attempted to march to the Greek Consulate to denounce Greece's role in Ocalan's capture.

The protesters responded by throwing stones which they pulled from the pavement, breaking the windows of several buildings nearby.

Turkish agents nabbed Ocalan in Nairobi after he was forced to leave the Greek Embassy there, where he had been offered refuge for several days while on the run.

Police allowed a small group to lay a black wreath outside the consulate.

In the western city of Izmir, protesters armed with stones and Molotov cocktails and chanting pro-Ocalan slogans also clashed with the police, leaving three people injured and one in custody, the Anatolia news agency reported.

In Mersin, on Turkey's southern coast, riot police, backed by an armored vehicle, disrupted a demonstration in which the protesters set bonfires in the streets, television footage showed. Fourteen people were detained, NTV news channel reported.