(Adds Erdogan comments and background) DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Oct 20 (Reuters) - One protester died of gunshot wounds on Monday when Kurdish demonstrators fought police in eastern Turkey as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan visited the region. Street clashes erupted between youths and police in Diyarbakir, the region's largest city, which Erdogan visited, and other towns including Dogubeyazit, Cizre and Batman. In Diyarbakir, protesters hurled stones at police, who were backed up by armoured personnel carriers and fired back with tear gas and water cannon. Police said 29 people had been arrested. Bus services had been suspended in the town and shops shuttered after supporters of the banned separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) called for protests against Erdogan. In Dogubeyazit, one man died in hospital after being shot during clashes between police and PKK supporters, hospital sources said. Turkey's Kurdish minority, who mostly live in the poor southeast, have long complained of discrimination and a lack of jobs. As municipal elections approach in March, the government has stepped up investment in the region. "In this country, every culture, be it Turkish, Kurdish, Bosnian, Georgian, adds to our common richness, no matter which ethnic root it comes from," Erdogan said in comments broadcast on television live from Diyarbakir. "We will concede neither security nor democracy nor human rights. We will not stop infrastructure investments in the region." Erdogan said a state television channel would start broadcasting in Kurdish for 12 hours a day from January. Tensions in the region have been exacerbated by a series of deadly PKK attacks on soldiers. The military has responded by pounding suspected PKK positions inside Turkey and in northern Iraq, where many of the rebels are based. Hundreds of PKK supporters protested across southeast and eastern Turkey on Saturday, alleging mistreatment of Abdullah Ocalan, the former leader of the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Dozens have been arrested. The authorities deny any mistreatment of Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on an island in the Marmara Sea. Analysts say an escalation in clashes between the military and the PKK may hurt the ruling AK Party in the March elections. Some 40,000 people have died in PKK-related violence since 1984, when the group took up arms to try to carve an ethnic Kurdish homeland out of southeast Turkey. The violence has deterred investors, and the huge gap in incomes between the east and the west of Turkey has led to mass migration to the major cities. (Writing by Thomas Grove and Paul de Bendern; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Kemal Alemdaroglu (C), one of the 86 defendants involved in the trial of ultra-nationalist group Ergenekon, arrives at the heavily guarded Silivri prison, 70km (43 miles) west of Istanbul, October 20, ...
