Six soldiers were injured in the fight in Osmaniye province on Friday, following an earlier clash in which seven members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed in the nearby Mediterranean province of Hatay.

Acting on a tip-off that militants had sneaked in from neighbouring Syria, the soldiers confronted the group in Hatay and seized explosives as well.

The PKK in the past has carried out other attacks in Hatay, which is close to but not part of the mainly Kurdish southeast.

Last year, the rebels fired rockets at a naval base in Hatay, killing seven soldiers.

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

The PKK announced a unilateral truce in August but last month threatened to end it, saying the ceasefire had become "meaningless" because of Ankara's failure to advance dialogue.

Fighting in Kurdish-dominated Anatolia, in southeastern Turkey, has lessened significantly since the truce, which the PKK extended in November until general elections expected in June to push for a peaceful solution of the 26-year-old conflict.