Fighting between security forces and rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) near the town of Lice, in Diyarbakir province, saw another four troops also wounded in the clash, local security sources said.

Another soldier was also killed and five others wounded in an earlier clash with PKK rbels in a rural area of the province of Agri, which borders Iran, the Anatolia news agency quoted local governor Mehmet Cetin as saying.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has waged a 24-year armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in a conflict that has claimed some 44,000 lives.

Ankara charges that the rebels use neighbouring northern Iraq as a springboard for attacks in Turkish territory and Turkish planes have carried out several strikes on rebel bases across the border.