The recruits would already have completed compulsory military service and would be engaged on three-year contracts for "use in anti-terrorist activities," he told the Milliyet newspaper.

Some 2,000 Kurdish rebels loyal to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are holed up in mountains in southern Turkey which straddle the border with Iran.

Turkish air raids on their strongholds have not prevented rebels who are seeking a separate homeland from launching attacks on Turkish targets.

The Turkish army of 515,000, the second largest in NATO, is made up mostly of conscripts who serve for a minimum of one year.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in the Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.