The clashes erupted late Sunday during a security operation against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Mardin province. A wounded soldier died in hospital on Monday, they said.

The PKK also said it was behind a bomb blast late Saturday that ripped through a truck parked outside a police building in eastern Igdir, near the Armenian border, injuring 17 people, among them five police officers.

"The bomb attack on the Igdir police guest house in the evening of September 23 was carried out by our guerrilla units," said a brief statement on the web site of the PKK's armed wing, the HPG.

The police have also blamed the PKK for the attack.

The rebels also claimed responsibility for a landmine explosion earlier Saturday on a railway in Elazig province, to the west, in which a freight train was derailed.

Despite the weekend violence, an Iraqi spokesman told Turkish television that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, was expecting the PKK to soon call a ceasefire after a meeting with PKK leaders based in the mountains of northern Iraq, where the group has long enyoyed save haven.

In the western Aegean city of Izmir, meanwhile, the police seized nine kilograms (20 pounds) of explosives and 10 detonators, believed to be destined for planned PKK attacks on tourist resorts, Anatolia news agency reported.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has stepped up violence this year after calling off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.

Besides attacks on the security forces, Kurdish militants have claimed a string of bombings of civilian targets and threatened to continue targeting the tourism sector, which attracts millions of holiday-makers every year.

The Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.