CEYLANPINAR, March 16: Syrian forces opened fire on Kurdish protesters in northern Syria close to the border with Turkey on Tuesday, killing seven people in fresh Arab-Kurdish violence, Anatolian news agency said.

In a statement issued by its embassy in Paris, Syria denied any suggestion of inter-ethnic tension and blamed the violence on politically motivated "troublemakers".

A senior Syrian official in Damascus said two people were killed in a tribal clash near the border with Turkey, but denied reports of other clashes. Syria's cabinet said in a statement that those who broke the law would be punished.

There are about two million Kurds in Syria's 17 million population, some 200,000 of whom are not recognized as citizens. Syria and Turkey have voiced opposition since the fall of Saddam Hussein last year to any moves to strengthen Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq, fearing it could ignite separatism among their own Kurdish populations.

Turkey's state-run Anatolian, quoting local sources, said the security forces fired shots at a meeting to commemorate the killing of 5,000 people in a 1988 chemical weapons attack on the town of Halabja in a Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

It said three people were killed at a protest in the city of Aleppo and four in the town of Afrin, adding that many people were injured. The sources said those killed were Kurds.

Several residents in Aleppo said they were not aware of any protests in the city. The violence first erupted after a brawl and stampede at a soccer match on Friday in the town of Kameshli near the Turkish and Iraqi borders.

A railway station, schools and public offices were badly damaged. That violence ended after Syrian Interior Minister Ali Haj Hammoud flew to the area to take control and the authorities threatened those responsible with the "severest punishments". -Reuters