The deaths bring to 19 the total number of soldiers killed since the incursion began Thursday evening, while the army toll of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants killed stood at 153 Monday.

The two soldiers were killed when militants opened fire on an army unit overnight, the general staff said in a statement.

The militants "were silenced with light and heavy weapons fire, but their losses could not be determined because of bad weather," it said.

Turkish warplanes continued to bomb PKK positions and "several critical locations" were reinforced with fresh units, it added.

The statement said the army had obtained information that "terrorists wounded in earlier clashes are being treated in hospitals in northern Iraq."

The military had warned the Iraqi Kurds, who run an autonomous administration in northern Iraq, not to give shelter and protection to PKK militants fleeing the offensive.