Tens of thousands of Kurds have held a rally in southeast Turkey, urging Ankara to reach a peace deal with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Press TV reported.
Some 20,000 people attended the demonstration in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, organized by the main Kurdish political party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), AFP reported Tuesday.
Watched over by hundreds of police officers, the demonstrators chanted the slogan "Yes to an Honorable Peace".
"There can be no peace without a counterpart," read placards in Turkish and Kurdish, referring to Ankara's refusal to hold a dialogue with PKK, who is fighting for self-rule in the southeast since 1984.
Many demonstrators also held portraits of the PKK's jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
In a separate demonstration in Istanbul, some 5,000 people rallied in support of a "democratic and peaceful" resolution of the conflict, media reports said.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the international community, accused Ankara on Tuesday of failing to take any "concrete or satisfactory" step in its bid to address the Kurdish grievances.
The party has also announced an extension to its unilateral ceasefire until September 22.
"Our movement has seen it appropriate to extend the non-action period until the end of the Eid ul-Fitr festival marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on September 22", said a PKK statement carried by the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency.
"In the meantime, we will watch closely the attitude of the Turkish state ... and make an evaluation," the statement added.
The demonstrators also called on the government to expand the rights of the Kurdish community, holding banners that read "I want my language, do not ban my language."
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Ankara will proceed with a plan to expand the rights of the country's Kurds.
The government announced last month that it was working on a package of 'courageous' reforms to boost the rights and freedoms of Turkey's Kurdish community and pave the way for the end of a 25-year bloody insurgency led by the PKK.
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