MOSCOW, May 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Hundreds of protesters turned out Saturday in the Uzbek border town of Kara-Su to demand the release of rebel leaders while Kyrgyz border guards turned back hundreds of Uzbek refugees who tried to break through the border from the town.

    Protesters in Kara-Su, a town of 20,000 residents, held placards demanding the government free farmer-turned-rebel-leader Bakhtiyar Rakhimov and locally popular wrestler Dilmurat Palvan, Interfax news agency reported. The protest was watched by government troops.

    Rakhimov and Palvan were among several protest leaders arrested Thursday after government forces swept into the town where protesters had seized government buildings and police offices.

    As residents protested the arrest of the two rebel leaders, hundreds of others in Kara-Su, which straddles the border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, tried to make it to neighboring Kyrgyzstan, only to be turned back by Kyrgyz border guards.

    About 500 Kara-Su residents attempted to break through the border to Kyrgyz territory early Saturday, demanding they be granted refugee status, the Kyrgyz border service told Interfax.

    "Kyrgyz border guards, supported by a special task force, sealed the border checkpoint. At the same time, border guards on the Uzbek side of the border were absent," the Kyrgyz border service said.

    "The situation at this section of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border is calm now. Border checkpoints are open, people and vehicles are moving through them, and Uzbek border guards are in place," it said.

    The exodus of Uzbek refugees was triggered by unrest in the former Soviet republic, which the government says has claimed the lives of 169 people in the eastern city of Andijan since last Friday.

    Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who blamed a branch of the outlawed radical Hizb ut-Tahrir group for the turmoil in Andijan, has shrugged off international demands to look into the events there.

    Karimov told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday that he opposed an international investigation into the unrest in Andijan.

    "He said he had the situation under control and was taking every measure to bring those responsible to account, and didn't need an international team to establish the facts," Annan said on Thursday night. Enditem