Turkish authorities have detained one suspect over a bomb attack that killed two people at a rally of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) just ahead of general elections, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Sunday.

The strike in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Friday left dozens more wounded and added to already simmering tensions ahead of Sunday's tight legislative polls.

A Turkish prosecutor on Wednesday requested the acquittal of a Dutch journalist specializing in Kurdish issues who was accused of "terrorist propaganda" for the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Frederike Geerdink, who is based in the Kurdish-majority southeastern city of Diyarbakir, had been briefly detained in January after authorities raided her home.

Three Turkish police were killed after an ambush in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast, amid renewed strains between the authorities and rebels fighting for self-rule, reports said Saturday.

The private Dogan news agency said that traffic police on the highway between the southeastern cities of Diyarbakir and Bitlis were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and then rifles late Friday.

Five Turkish soldiers were injured on Wednesday during clashes with Kurdish protesters over government plans to build military barracks in the southeast of the country.

Soldiers fired tear gas and water cannon to break up a 12-day sit-in by some 400 protesters in the Lice district of Kurdish majority Diyarbakir province.

A British tourist who was kidnapped by Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey at the weekend was freed on Monday, officials in London and Turkey said.

The 35-year-old man was described as being in good health and is to be taken to the main southeastern city of Diyarbakir for brief questioning about his ordeal, a Turkish official said on condition of anonymity.

Thousands of Kurds clashed with police Sunday in Istanbul and the southern city of Diyarbakir, leaving nine people injured as security forces tried to stop Kurdish New Year festivities.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon to prevent more than 40,000 Kurds from gathering at the main square in Diyarbakir, capital of the Kurdish-majority south, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Turkish police arrested more than 70 people in simultaneous raids around the country on Tuesday for suspected links to outlawed Kurdish rebels, media reports said.

Lawyers for jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan who are members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were among those arrested, security sources from the southeastern province of Diyarbakir said.