Tens of thousands of Kurds celebrated a spring festival across Turkey on Sunday with many chanting support for a Kurdish rebel group and its imprisoned leader, as clashes resurfaced between Kurdish guerrillas and Turkish troops.

About 30 Kurds, wearing khaki guerrilla uniforms and flashing victory signs, marched in unison amid tens of thousands of Kurds gathered in Istanbul to celebrate the Nowruz festival, which also drew large crowds in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast. Some demonstrators waved images of imprisoned rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan, which is illegal.

Kurdish activists used the festival, which has ended in violence in the past, to highlight demands for autonomy and other rights such as education in the Kurdish language. Meanwhile, the autonomy-seeking Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, threatened to "retaliate" against the military's anti-rebel operations, pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported.

This year's celebrations come after the rebels ended a unilateral cease-fire, accusing the government of not responding to their demands for an end to the prosecution of elected Kurdish mayors and for improvement of prison conditions for Ocalan.

Turkish troops killed four Kurdish rebels in a clash near the city of Bingol on Friday, increasing the number of rebels killed since the truce ended on Feb. 28 to seven, the military said. An officer and a pro-government village guard were wounded, it said.

"We are calling on the prime minister to stop these operations," the Anatolia news agency quoted Gultan Kisanak, deputy chairperson of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, as saying in an address to crowds in Diyarbakir. "The Kurdish people want freedom, peace and brotherhood. Give an ear to the sound of this arena. Enough, enough, enough."

Mevlude Tanrikulu, a Kurdish mother whose son, Zubeyir, joined the rebel group a decade ago, echoed a similar call in an interview with AP Television News in Diyarbakir on Friday.

"We don't want blood to be shed. Death is a cold feeling, we don't want death," Tanrikulu said. "We don't want young people to die, it does not matter if the person is a rebel or a soldier."

Turkey categorically refuses any cease-fire, vowing to fight the rebels, who are branded as terrorists by the West, until they lay down arms or are killed.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul denied discrimination against the Kurdish minority.

"Whatever their ethnic roots, language, beliefs and political views, everyone is an integral and equal citizen of this country," Gul said.

___

Associated Press writers Gulden Alp in Ankara and Erol Israfil in Istanbul contributed to this report.