Three other village guards and four soldiers were wounded while they were providing safety during road construction, the Siirt governor's office said in a statement.

Those killed were also village guards -- locals employed to combat Kurdish militants.

The governorate did not give further details on the attack but blamed the "separatist terrorist organisation" -- Turkey's official term for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The office said that a wide operation was underway to "neutralise the PKK terrorists who launched the attack".

The PKK has been waging an insurgency in the southeast since 1984 and is proscribed as a terror organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.

Fighting in the region intensified between Turkish security forces and the PKK after the collapse of a two-year ceasefire in 2015.