The announcement came as officials said two Turkish troops and two rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed in fresh fighting.

"We see a serious increase in the number of daily clashes," Mihdi Perinçek, the Human Rights Association (IHD) representative for the mainly Kurdish east and southeast of Turkey, told a press conference here.

"We are also concerned that clashes are spreading across the region," he said.

A tally compiled by the IHD from officials and independent sources said 111 members of the security forces, 109 PKK rebels and five civilians were killed in the region from January to June.

This compared with 190 people killed in the corresponding period of 2006, the IHD said.

On its Internet website, the Turkish general staff said 100 PKK rebels were killed between April and June. There were no figures available for the first three months of the year, or for losses on the military side.

Violence increased markedly this year as the PKK stepped up its attacks and the army responded with large-scale operations to hunt down the rebels as it massed troops on the border with Iraq, where the militants take refuge.

Security sources here said Friday that a soldier was killed in a clash late Thursday with PKK rebels in the eastern Bingol province.

Another soldier was killed, and one wounded in a land mine explosion blamed on the PKK late Thursday in neighbouring Erzincan province, also in the east, the local governor's office said.

Turkish soldiers shot dead two PKK rebels late Thursday in the southeastern Hakkari province, which borders Iraq and Iran, the governor's office said.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's east and southeast in 1984 in a bloody conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.