The dead included six members of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), one soldier and one militia member in a rural area close to Ercis about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Iranian border, the official said.

Army reinforcements have been sent to the area.

More than 37,000 people have died since the start of an armed campaign by the PKK for Kurdish self-rule in 1984. The group is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.