Turkish soldiers clashed with Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey near the border with Iraq overnight in fighting which left one soldier dead and three wounded, military sources said today.
There has been an escalation of violence between the Turkish armed forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas in recent weeks as the spring sun warms the mountains of southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, where the militants are active.
The sources said fighting broke out in Sirnak province at Uludere as the troops engaged a group of PKK fighters crossing the border from the Iraqi mountains, where several thousand of the rebels are based.
Hundreds of soldiers were at the same time conducting operations against the militants in the mountainous eastern province of Tunceli and were trying to identify four rebels who have been killed in the fighting there.
The operation comes a week after Turkish warplanes bombed some 50 PKK targets in northern Iraq.
The rebels took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of creating an independent homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country.
More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict.
Reuters