Rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) launched the attack late on Friday close to a radar station near Karlisu in Antakya province, close to the Syrian border. Another soldier was wounded, the report said.

The army launched a combing operation following the attack in which the rebel was killed, the regional government in Antakya was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the families of soldiers and rebels killed in fighting met on Saturday in the southeastern town of Diyarbakir to call for peace and reconciliation.

"Instead of quelling suffering, vengeance and hatred increase and spread it. We do not want other mothers to know the suffering that we have known," said the group's president Muslum Ozturk.

Last month the Turkish government announced that it was working on a reform package to boost the rights of its Kurdish community and encourage the PKK rebels to lay down arms.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast and east since 1984, in a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.