DIYARBAKIR: Tens of thousands of Kurds rallied Tuesday urging Turkey to grant them greater rights and reach a peace deal with Kurdish rebels who extended their truce till the end of the Muslim holy fasting month.

Organisers said about 100,000 people turned up in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, at the rally called by the main Kurdish political party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP).

In a speech often interrupted by applause, DTP leader Ahmet Turk said the government must negotiate with the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to end the 25-year violence that has claimed some 45,000 lives.

"We have always said the problem can be solved only through dialogue. But what we can do is limited because those who have been fighting with loss of life for nearly 30 years must be part of the negotiation process," he said.

Turkey refuses any contact with the PKK, blacklisted by much of the global community as a terrorist organisation, and has already dismissed a peace plan prepared by jailed rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan that is yet to be announced.

Turk said Kurds did not want to break up Turkey and called on Ankara to take measures to ensure equal rights for the community, which has long called for Kurdish identity and culture to be officially recognised.

"Do not try to impose the unitary state on us as a state based on race," he said.

Many demonstrators held portraits of Ocalan and waved flags in the Kurdish colours of red, green and yellow as songs praising the rebel chief blared out of loudspeakers.

"There can be no peace without a counterpart," read a placard in Turkish and Kurdish, while another said "I want my language, do not ban my language."

A separate demonstration in Istanbul, organised by trade unions, civic bodies and political parties in support of a democratic and peaceful resolution of the conflict, drew some 5,000 people, media reports said.

The Turkish government has been trying to draw up support for a package of reforms to expand the rights of the Kurdish community, hoping to encourage the PKK to lay down arms.

No details of reforms have been released, but Interior Minister Besir Atalay said Monday that the government had no plans for a general amnesty for Kurdish rebels or constitutional amendments.

The PKK on Tuesday accused Ankara of failing to take any "concrete or satisfactory" step in its bid to address Kurdish grievances, as it announced that an extension of its unilateral ceasefire until September 22.

"Our movement has seen it appropriate to extend the non-action period until the end of" the Eid ul-Fitr festival marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, said a PKK statement carried by the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency.

"In the meantime, we will watch closely the attitude of the Turkish state ... and make an evaluation," it added, calling on Ankara to announce the details of Ocalan's peace plan which his lawyers say he handed to his jailers last month.

Opposition parties remain hostile to Ankara's plan, arguing that broader Kurdish rights would pave the way for Turkey's disintegration.

The army has also warned that the planned reforms must not endanger unity, underlining a constitutional article that describes Turkey as being an indivisible whole with Turkish as its language.

Media reports have said that the government plan may involve restoring the Kurdish names of villages that have been renamed and lifting a ban on using Kurdish in political propaganda.

But sceptics argue that a lasting settlement cannot be achieved if Ankara insists on rejecting dialogue with the PKK and fails to draw up a clear strategy to convince the rebels to lay down arms.