The clashes occurred near the town of Batman, it said.

The dead and the injured were rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the United States and the European Union, and which has stepped up its military activity this year.

The group has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish areas in the east and southeast since 1984 in a bloody conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.