(Adds Kurdish protest in Iraq in final four paragraphs)

By Seyhmus Cakan

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Two Kurds protesting against the closure of a pro-Kurdish party were shot dead and seven were wounded on Tuesday when shopkeepers attacked them in the south-eastern Turkish town of Mus, security officials said.

One shopkeeper was detained for opening fire on the protesters, state-run news agency Anatolian reported.

The fatalities were the first after days of violence and street protests following a Constitutional Court ruling on Friday to ban the only Kurdish party in parliament.

A student was killed in clashes with police a week earlier as tensions began to rise in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

Police detained two people and seized a bag of explosives in a bus station in the neighbouring south-eastern province of Mardin on Tuesday, security officials said.

The court, using a controversial political parties act, found the Democratic Society Party (DTP) guilty of cooperating with Kurdish separatist PKK rebels.

The decision was criticised by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose government is trying to boost Kurdish rights in a bid to end a 25-year-old conflict that has killed 40,000 people.

The court ruling is seen as a setback for Turkey's faltering hopes of joining the European Union.

The European Commission this week warned that the ruling deprived voters of the political representation needed for Turkey to fulfil its democratic mandate.

The same prosecutor who won the court's support to ban the DTP had unsuccessfully tried to have Erdogan's AK Party banned in 2008 on grounds that it contravened Turkey's secular constitution.

Erdogan, whose party has Islamist roots, on Monday called for national unity and said Turkey would overcome its problems.

Erdogan needs Kurdish support for his Kurdish initiative, which is vigorously opposed by nationalists.

Analysts say the danger is that the ban on the DTP will further alienate Kurds, and could fan support for militants.

There was a small reminder in Iraq of the potential for the conflict to sow regional instability, with Kurds spread across Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Around 200 people gathered near the Kurdish parliament building in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region, to protest the Turkish court's decision.

"I want to awaken all Kurds to what we face together, conspiracies from Turkey and the United States and Iraq," said Fatima, a Turkish woman living in Arbil.

Some protesters carried photographs of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader imprisoned in Turkey, and chanted in Kurdish and performed traditional Kurdish dances.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Istanbul and Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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