The PKK said in a statement that the soldiers were being "held in guerrilla areas in northern Kurdistan" -- PKK parlance for Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey.

The statement was carried on the Belgium-based Firat news agency's web site.

The eight soldiers were taken prisoner after an ambush Sunday against a military unit near the Iraqi border in which 12 other soldiers were killed.

The news agency, generally seen as a mouthpiece for the PKK, released photographs of the soldiers on its Internet site on Tuesday.