By BEN HOLLAND

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AP)--Thousands of Kurdish youths put up barricades and battled police Thursday in a southern Turkish city after authorities banned Kurds from celebrating their New Year. Two demonstrators were killed. 

Riot police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse crowds in the city of Mersin, where at least 40 police and 20 protesters were injured, said Gov. Akif Tig. At least 200 people were detained. 

Authorities banned celebrations of Nowruz _the Farsi-language word for ``new year''--in Mersin and other southeast cities where they said the festivities would be ``exploited by outlawed groups to cause provocations.'' 

Several thousand Kurds in Mersin hurled rocks and bricks at personnel carriers and authorities to protest the ban. 

Police said a personnel carrier skidded in the rain and crushed a 34-year-old man to death. Another Kurdish man also was killed in the clashes, private CNN-Turk television reported. 

Among the injured was small girl crushed by a huge metal garbage container accidentally knocked over by a personnel carrier. The girl appeared to be seriously injured and was rushed to hospital. 

Hours before the protests began, two policemen were killed in Mersin when an armored personnel carrier ran off a bridge while patrolling the streets. 

The clashes recalled those at Nowruz celebrations at the height of the 15-year-conflict between autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels and Turkish troops. 

Police regularly clashed then with Kurdish demonstrators who used the festival to assert demands for Kurdish rights. 

The conflict has left some 37,000 dead, though fighting has eased since the rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999. 

The ancient Persian festival--celebrated the first day of spring in countries including Afghanistan and Iran--is mainly a Kurdish event in Turkey. 

In Istanbul, where the festival was also banned, police used water cannons to disperse demonstrating Kurds. Police said more than 540 were detained. 

In Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, hundreds of thousands of Kurds gathered in a field outside the city, arriving on foot or crammed in the back of trucks. The police presence was heavy and included tanks. However, no major troubles were reported. 

Turkey, which is seeking membership in the European Union, is under increasing pressure from the group to grant cultural rights to Kurds. 

The EU says Turkey must allow broadcasting and education in Kurdish if it wants to join the bloc. Turkey says granting special rights to its estimated 12 million Kurds could arouse ethnic tension and even lead to the division of the country. 

``There is no freedom of language ... I consider this is an insult to millions of people,'' said Ali Urkut, the head of the Diyarbakir branch of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party during the festivities in Diyarbakir. 

Murat Bozlak, the leader of the party, said it was time for the government to allow the free use of the Kurdish language and to lift a state of emergency in four southeastern provinces. 

``They have tried governing this country with bans and repression,'' Bozlak said. ``But this country belongs to all of us, and we want to live in freedom.''