The attack by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took place near the Aktuluk village in the province of Tunceli, the sources said, adding that one of the soldiers sustained heavy injuries.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast in 1984. The conflict has claimed some 44,000 lives.

The army has stepped up operations against the group both in Turkey and in northern Iraq after recent bloodshed claimed 22 lives.

On October 3, PKK rebels assaulted a Turkish outpost near the Iraqi border, killing 17 soldiers.

Five days later, five people were killed in a rebel attack on a police bus in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.