ISTANBUL (Reuters):

As many as 100,000 people filed silently through Istanbul yesterday to pay their last respects to Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink, whose murder has stirred debate about the influence of hardline nationalism in Turkey.

From early morning, tearful mourners, many holding identical black-and-white signs reading "We are all Hrant Dink" and "We are all Armenians", gathered outside the Agos newspaper office where Dink was shot three times in broad daylight last Friday.

White doves were released into the air as sombre music played. Much of downtown Istanbul, a sprawling city of some 12 million set on the Bosphorus waterway, was closed to traffic.

A 17-year-old youth, Ogun Samast, has confessed to killing Dink for "insulting" Turks. A nationalist militant friend of Samast has admitted to inciting Samast to kill Dink, who had worked for re- conciliation between Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks.

"We are seeing off our brother with a silent walk, without slogans and without asking how a baby became a murderer," Dink's widow Rakel, surrounded by her three children, told mourners.

Turkey has become a more open, liberal country in recent years, helped by a series of reforms driven by the country's campaign to join the European Union.

But the murder has highlighted the continued influence of ultra-nationalism.

"Seeing this mass of people gives me courage. There are lots of people against racism and nationalism," said Turkish actress Lale Mansur.

Organisers estimated 100,000 mourners followed the black hearse and flower-covered coffin on its 8-km (5 mile) journey across Istanbul and the Golden Horn waterway to an Armenian church. Police said there were tens of thousands.

Ministers, foreign diplomats, Armenian government officials and members of both Turkey's 60,000-strong Armenian community and the global Armenian diaspora joined the funeral service.

Dink was buried at the city's Balikli Armenian Cemetery.