DIYARBAKIR (Turkey), March 21: Two men were crushed to death and dozens were injured in Turkey on Thursday when riot police cracked down on Kurds celebrating their traditional New Year.

The Anatolia news agency reported scattered incidents across the country and said more than 500 people were arrested, although the day’s festivities went off calmly in many areas.

Officials warned the Kurdish minority not to use the day, which in the past has witnessed deadly clashes between troops and Kurdish separatist sympathizers, for political ends.

But the celebrations were marred with bloodshed in the southern city of Mersin where 34-year-old Mehmet Sen died after being crushed against a wall by a police vehicle moving in on a riot that erupted when revellers refused to disperse, according to local officials quoted by Anatolia.

A second man — Omer Aydin, 39 — was also crushed to death in Mersin, the agency reported.

The merry-makers had reportedly built several bonfires, a traditional activity to mark the Kurdish New Year, Nauroze, before the riot broke out. Local governor Akif Tig said 41 police and 20 protesters were injured.

It was the first death in the past few years of Nauroze celebrations.

Anatolia said around 80 protesters were detained in the incidents, which saw police use teargas while the rioters pelted officers with stones and attacked them with sticks.

There were also scuffles in Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul when police moved on a crowd that had gathered despite a local ban on the celebrations.

Istanbul police chief Hasan Ozdemir told the agency that 439 people were detained in the city in the crackdown on what he called “illegal demonstrations”, and the report said riot police used water cannons and teargas on the crowd.

There were also scuffles between police and protesters in Mersin and Aydin reported on Wednesday.

The violence prompted a harsh warning from Interior Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen against those who “use Newroz (Nauroze) for political aims”.

“Everyone should be aware that the state and its officials will never allow this day to be exploited for political reasons and be an occasion for acts against the state,” Yucelen told reporters in Istanbul.

Thousands of Kurds also gathered outside the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly-Kurdish region which was the scene of a 15-year insurgency led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

A peaceful atmosphere prevailed at the festivities, organized by the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HADEP) for the third year in a row.

“We went to live in peace with the Turkish people,” HADEP chairman Murat Bozlak told the crowd, which chanted pro-Kurdish slogans without any intervention from police.

About 50 Kurds were killed by security forces in 1992 during violent demonstrations in the region.

But the tense atmosphere and normally heavy fighting has subsided considerably since September 1999, when the PKK said it was ending its armed campaign and withdrawing from Turkey to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

The PKK truce came following peace calls from its leader Abdullah Ocalan, captured in February 1999 and now on death row for treason, but was brushed aside by the Turkish army as a ploy.

Nauroze, a pagan festival of Zoroastrian origin, marks the awakening of nature at the March 21 equinox, and is also celebrated in Iran and other Muslim communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

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