The explosion happened during a security sweep against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on rural ground near Cukurca, Hakkari province, which lies close to the border with Iraq, the agency said.

Additional forces were dispatched to the region against a possible PKK attack.

Landmine attacks have become a hallmark of PKK violence since the group called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004 and the rebels started to penetrate Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq.

The Turkish army has recently amassed troops in the southeast, in areas along the borders with Iraq and Iran, to crack down on militants who cross over into Turkey with increasing frequency in the spring.

Turkey says an estimated 5,000 PKK rebels have found refuge in northern Iraq since 1999 when the group -- considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union -- declared the ceasefire and withdrew from Turkey.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK took up arms for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish-populated southeast of Turkey.