The German chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, appealed for calm last night after staff at the Israeli consulate in Berlin shot dead three Kurdish protesters and injured 15 others.
Security guards opened fire when Kurds protesting against the arrest of the PKK leader, Mr Abdullah Ocalan, attempted to storm the consulate and some demonstrators entered the building.
Mr Schroder expressed regret at the killings but he warned that Kurds would be deported from Germany unless they called off their violent protests.
"We cannot allow conflicts that are not our conflicts to be taken onto the streets of Germany. The police and the justice system will deal harshly with any violent acts in Germany, regardless of their motivation," he said.
The German Interior Minister, Mr Otto Schily, warned last night that the Kurdish protests could become more violent. Bonn's greatest fear is that Kurdish attacks on Germany's Turkish community could escalate the conflict out of control.
Meanwhile, as the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Bulent Ecevit, said Mr Oclan would have "a very free, a very just trial because justice is very free in Turkey, autonomous", a Turkish defence lawyer was detained, a colleague claimed.
He was one of a group of lawyers refused entry at Istanbul airport on Tuesday night, said a German lawyer, Ms Britta Boehler, on her return to Amsterdam. She said the incident showed Mr Oclan would not get a fair trial. "If he is still alive, he is being tortured," she added.
Mr Ecevit said Mr Oclan was being held in a fortress-like island prison in the Sea of Marmara.
In London, about 90 Kurds clan said they were on hunger strike inside the Greek embassy in London and would set themselves on fire if police stormed the building.
In Geneva, demonstrators peacefully ended their occupation of Greek missions and UN buildings in Switzerland.
In Stockholm, a group of Kurdish protesters took 13 people hostage at the headquarters of Sweden's governing Social Democrats but released them after a three-hour siege.
In Ottawa, about 250 protesters threw Molotov cocktails and chunks of ice and stone at the Turkish embassy burning one police officer and injuring at least a dozen others, police said.
In Nicosia, President Glafcos Clerides ordered an investigation into reports that Mr Ocalan was travelling on a forged Cypriot passport, officials said.
In Washington, the US State Department gave tacit support to an incursion by Turkish troops into northern Iraq on a military operation against the outlawed PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party).
"We support the right of the Turkish government to defend itself against terrorists," a spokesman said.
More than 1,000 Kurds were arrested throughout Germany yesterday following clashes between police and protesters in a number of cities. Demonstrators occupied the Social Democratic Party offices in Hamburg and held a 34 year-old party official hostage, threatening to set fire to the building and themselves.
A thick trail of blood ran across the snow-covered street outside the Israeli consulate in Berlin yesterday afternoon to where a line of ambulances stood ready to receive the wounded. One man gave a victory sign as he was carried out in a wheelchair and another, who was connected to a drip, shouted "Freedom for Ocalan!"
Hundreds of Kurds began to converge on the consulate, which is in one of Berlin's most elegant districts, shortly after noon yesterday. Police in riot gear prevented most protesters from reaching the building but 20 or 30 made their way through police lines and attempted to storm the consulate just before 2 p.m.
The Israeli authorities said that their guards opened fire after a Kurdish protester attempted to seize a weapon from a guard. But a 15-year-old eyewitness said that he heard no warning before the shots were fired. "Twenty or 30 people got over the fence. They stood at the door and tried to get in and then an Israeli came and started shooting," he said.
Two protesters died inside the consulate and a third died shortly after arriving in hospital. Most of the injured were released from hospital but one woman was in a critical condition last night.
The Kurds targeted the Israeli diplomatic mission following reports that Israel may have helped Turkey with the operation in Nairobi that led to Mr Ocalan's arrest on Monday. The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, denied that his secret service was involved in the operation and expressed sorrow at the loss of life.
