Turkish police arrested 109 people on Monday in a major new nationwide operation targeting union leaders and activists over their links to Kurdish rebels, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish police arrested 109 people on Monday in a major new nationwide operation targeting union leaders and activists over their links to Kurdish rebels, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The agency quoted judicial sources as saying that “the police raided about 20 offices and homes in Istanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, and about 20 other towns and cities.”

The operation was part of a wider legal offensive against the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), a union regarded by the authorities in Ankara as the political wing of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Many of those who were arrested had been involved in cases defending the rights of Kurdish municipal workers, media reports said.