The clashes came as jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan reportedly decided to abandon efforts to seek dialogue with the Turkish government.

Two soldiers and a member of the "village guard" -- a government-armed militia of local Kurds backing up the army against Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- died in clashes in Sirnak province, the military said in an online statement.

Two other soldiers were wounded in the fighting, which erupted in a mountainous area close to the Iraqi border when the security forces came upon a group of PKK rebels, it said.

The operation to hunt down the militants was continuing, army sources said.

In a separate incident, two village guardsmen were killed when PKK militants opened fire on a military patrol in a rural area in Siirt province, Anatolia news agency reported.

Late in the evening, another group of rebels attacked a chrome mine in the province of Antakya, killing a private security guard at the facility and wounding another, Anatolia reported.

One of the assailants was also killed in the shooting, it said.

Following a usual winter lull, violence has broken out anew in the southeast with the arrival of spring melting snow and allowing the rebels to move out from their mountainous hideouts in Turkey and neighbouring Iraq.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms against Ankara in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.

Also Saturday, the Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Politika quoted PKK leader Ocalan as saying that he was abandoning efforts to establish dialogue with Ankara, leaving top PKK commanders in charge in the conflict.

"Keeping up this process is no longer meaningful and useful. I am quitting after May 31 since I could not find an interlocutor," he said in remarks to his lawyers when they paid him a visit in jail recently, according to the report.

Ocalan's calls for dialogue have been rejected by the government, which insists the PKK should either lay down arms or face the army.

The rebel chief said his decision did not amount to a call on the PKK to intensify its armed campaign.

"This should not be misunderstood. This is not a call for a war," he said, according to Ozgur Politika.

Although behind bars, Ocalan has retained his influence over the PKK, often issuing guidelines to the rebels in statements released through his lawyers.