In a statement on its website, the army confirmed that four Turkish soldiers had been wounded in the clashes. "On the other side, five terrorists were killed and one wounded was captured," it said.

The army said that three of the Turkish soldiers were not severely wounded and their lives were not in danger but the fourth had undergone an operation in hospital.

The clashes, which have dealt a blow to the process to make peace with the PKK after a decades-long insurgency, erupted in the morning after the army sent in troops to thwart what it said was a PKK event.