Negotiators yesterday continued efforts to secure the release of at least 72 hostages held by leftist inmates in seven prisons across Turkey for a third day.
Prison officers were held in the Istanbul high security prisons of Umraniye and Bayrampasa as well as in Bartin in northern Turkey, Cankiri in central Anatolia, Canakkale and Gebze in the north-west and Bergama in the west.
Several hundred prisoners in seven other prisons joined the protests by refusing to let security forces enter their compounds for cell checks.
Mr Yucel Sayman, head of the Istanbul bar association, was seeking a conciliation.
Emerging from the prison early yesterday he reported a suitable atmosphere going towards a solution. The protests, led by an ultra-left underground group, followed a riot in the Ulucanlar prison in Ankara early on Sunday in which leftist militants clashed with security forces who had entered their block to investigate reports of an escape tunnel, according to the justice ministry.
At least 10 prisoners died.