The troops were patrolling for outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels when they spotted a group of villagers picking thyme near the village of Dedemli in the southern Hatay province, provincial governor Mehmet Celalettin Lekesiz told Anatolia.

They opened fire thinking the villagers were PKK militants, Lekesiz said.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has stepped up attacks on Turkish targets as part of a 26-year campaign for self-rule in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

Last month, six soldiers were killed in a rocket attack by the rebels on a navy base in Iskenderun, in Hatay.

Last week, the PKK claimed responsibility for a remote-control roadside bomb that hit a bus carrying army personnel in Istanbul, killing four soldiers and the teenage daughter of an officer.

The PKK threatened to spread violence to urban areas after a wave of deadly attacks on the security forces in remote regions in the southeast.

The group took up arms against Ankara in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed around 45,000 lives.