Speaking after a dramatic increase in attacks by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which claimed the lives of 12 soldiers at the weekend, General Ilker Basbug vowed determination to defeat the 26-year insurgency in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

"We are absolutely determined to fight the terrorist organisation until it is entirely annihilated. This struggle is a long-term one and requires patience," Basbug told a conference in the northwestern city of Canakkale, according to Anatolia.

The general said the struggle against the PKK should involve a combination of security measures and economic and socio-cultural initiatives to woo the sizeable Kurdish community.

But he stressed that "it would be a mistake to think that terror will be eradicated only by taking the required measures in the economic and socio-cultural fields as long as the terrorist organisation continues to keep armed elements," according to Anatolia.

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

The military suffered most of its weekend casualties when PKK militants attacked a border unit at the Iraqi frontier early Saturday, prompting a Turkish air raid on the group's hideouts in neighbouring Iraq. At least 12 militants were killed, the army said.

Iraqi Kurdish officials said Sunday that Turkish troops launched also a ground incursion to chase PKK rebels, advancing 10 kilometres (six miles) into Iraqi territory, an operation the Turkish army has not confirmed.

The violence turned up pressure on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, already scrambling to save a fragile initiative to boost Kurdish freedoms and investment in the impoverished southeast in a bid to discourage Kurdish separatism.