The media were notified by fax, a copy of which reached AFP overnight, of the ruling by a military tribunal in Van, eastern Turkey, at a non-trial hearing on Monday.

The soldiers are being court martialed for neglect of duty.

The tribunal ruled that the blackout was necessary because the information and documents to be presented in the case were "of a nature that require secrecy in the interest of national security."

The three-man court said the eight soldiers, released on November 4 and arrested one week later, were being tried for "acting contrary to the requirements of civil service duty, persistent insubordination resulting in great loss, and escaping abroad."

It says they "abandoned their positions in conformity with terrorist appeals and went to terrorist camps in northern Iraq along with the terrorists."

The October 21 ambush by rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), just a few kilometres (miles) from the Iraqi border, left 12 Turkish soldiers dead, 17 injured and eight "missing in action," according to the army.

The attack shocked Turkey and put pressure on the government to take military action against PKK bases in northern Iraq.

The PKK's campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since it began in 1984.

Turkey says the rebel group, listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, enjoys support from the autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, from where it launches deadly attacks on targets inside Turkey.

Turkey has massed nearly 100,000 troops on its border with Iraq and threatened a cross-border incursion.

Although military action remains a possibility, tensions seem to have eased after talks at the White House last week between US President George W. Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.