Fighting erupted in a rural area near the village of Ortacanak where troops have been hunting down rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for the past three days, the report said.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast and east since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Turkey charges that thousands of PKK rebels use bases in neighbouring northern Iraq as a springboard for attacks on Turkish territory.

Faced with mounting PKK violence, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government secured a parliamentary approval in October to order cross-border operations into Iraq, if necessary, against PKK targets.

Since December 16, the Turkish army has said it has carried out four air strikes against rebel positions in northern Iraq as well as a ground cross-border operation to stop a group of rebels trying to infiltrate Turkey.

Iraqi Kurds, who run northern Iraq, reported two other air strikes in December that Ankara did not confirm.