Kurds Clash with Police across Turkey in Protests over Kobane

Pro-Kurdish protesters clashed Tuesday with Turkish police in Istanbul in a new show of anger over the lack of action by the government against jihadists fighting for a key Syrian town.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has so far not intervened militarily against Islamic State (IS) jihadists fighting for the Kurdish border town of Kobane, to the fury of Turkey's Kurds.

Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, the People's Democratic Party (HDP), late Monday called for street protests "against IS attacks and the AKP's stance on Kobane".

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has vowed that Turkey will do whatever necessary to prevent the fall of Kobane.

But Kurds bitterly accuse Ankara of of merely looking on as the town risks being over-run by jihadists despite dozens of Turkish tanks being deployed on the border.

In Istanbul's Gazi neighborhood, largely populated by Kurds, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse a protest by several hundred Kurds Tuesday afternoon, an AFP correspondent reported.

In the same area Monday night, protesters blocked a main highway, hurled Molotov cocktails and fireworks at police who fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse them.

Crowds at another working-class district, Esentepe, set fire to an empty passenger bus, leaving just a burned out shell of wreckage, television pictures showed.

The blaze was extinguished by the fire service but the vehicle's fuel then spilled, causing an accident in which several people were injured, Dogan news agency reported.

Another protest was taking place Tuesday afternoon in the bustling Kadikoy neighborhood on the Asian side of Istanbul, television said.

Kurds have been particularly irked by the reluctance of the Turkish authorities, who are themselves worried by Kurdish separatism, to allow Kurdish fighters over the border into Syria.

In Diyarbakir, Turkey's largest Kurdish city in the southeast, enraged youths overnight torched a police vehicle, scores of vehicles and shops and attacked government offices and fired shots into the air.

A fire broke out in one house and office due to petrol bombs, an AFP reporter said. Protesters whistled and banged pots and pans hanging from their balconies and waved Kurdish flags.

In Mardin province on the Syrian border, demonstrators destroyed a bust of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkish republic, reports said.

In Adana, IS supporters opened fire on protesters who took to street in solidarity with Kurdish fighters in Kobane, injuring two people, the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency reported on Tuesday.