ANKARA, Feb. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Six members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers'Party (PKK) were arrested in eastern Turkey, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported on Monday.

    Turkish security forces arrested the six PKK members during operations in Dogubayazit town of Agri province and Kagizman town of Kars province, said the report.

    Meanwhile, about 600 pro-Kurdish rebel demonstrators inIstanbul, the largest city of Turkey, on Sunday attacked the Turkish police and set a bus on fire to protest the solitary confinement of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, Turkish local media reported.

    Masked Kurdish demonstrators who unfurled banners of Ocalan's PKK rebel group set up barricades in the street and threw stones and firebombs at police in low-income Bagcilar district ofIstanbul, according to media reports.

    Ocalan, 57, has been in solitary confinement on the prison island of Imrali near Istanbul since his capture on Feb. 15, 1999. More than 37,000 people have been killed since the rebel grouptook up arms against Ankara for an independent Kurdish state in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey in 1984.

    PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United Statesand the European Union. Enditem