Turkish authorities discovered the remains of about a dozen people in a mass grave on Wednesday during a probe into Kurdish people missing since the 1990s, Anatolia news agency reported.
The prosecutor in Mutki in the Kurdish-majority Bitlis province ordered a search of a waste disposal area on the outskirts of the town after a tip-off from families, the report said.
The remains of nine people were uncovered during the initial search, plus bones belonging to three other people, observer Enis Gul was quoted as saying.
A similar excavation in 2009 in Sirnak province, which neighbours Bitlis, uncovered remains and clothes.
The search for mass graves began in September in connection with the trial of seven people, including a former police colonel, accused of taking part in the summary executions of 20 people during the 1990s, when Kurdish unrest in the region was at its height.
Around 45,000 people have died since the mid-1980s when the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took up arms for a self-ruled homeland in southeast Turkey.
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