Kurdish guerrillas attacked a military outpost in southeast Turkey overnight, triggering a clash in which nine militants and three soldiers were killed, security sources said today.
Military helicopters flew in troop reinforcements to search for the remaining Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels who launched the attack in the Semdinli district of Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq.
Three soldiers were also wounded in the fighting.
The army operation was focused on the area around the Iraqi border, across which the militants frequently cross from bases in northern Iraq to attack the Turkish military.
The PKK has stepped up attacks on the armed forces in southeast Turkey after ending a 14-month ceasefire at the start of June. More than 80 soldiers have been killed so far this year, already exceeding the death toll in 2009.
In response the military has carried out air strikes on rebel targets in northern Iraq.
The upsurge in violence has undermined an attempt by the government of prime minister Tayyip Erdogan to boost Kurdish minority rights More than 40,000 people have been killed in a conflict that began in 1984 when the PKK took up arms against the state with the aim of creating a separate Kurdish homeland.
Reuters