ISTANBUL: Turkey’s military said on Saturday the number of soldiers killed in clashes with Kurdish guerrillas following an attack by the separatist movement on an army base in the southeast region had risen to six.

The attack on the gendarmerie base in Hakkari province came despite an ongoing army operation, backed by attack helicopters, warplanes, tanks and artillery against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the mountainous parts of southeast Turkey.

The military had initially said two soldiers were killed when rebels attacked the base on Friday. Security sources said some 50 PKK guerrillas were involved in the attack.

The General Staff said in a statement on Saturday that four more soldiers died when the army launched a ground and aerial counter-attack on suspected PKK positions.

The General Staff said 19 rebels of the outlawed PKK were killed in those air strikes. Security sources, who declined to be named, told Reuters on Friday 20 that rebels had been killed in that operation.

The PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, denied the losses.

Amid widespread public anger over PKK attacks, Turkey has sent tens of thousands of troops to the border region. In early May dozens of Turkish F-16 warplanes have also gone on bombing raids against suspected PKK positions deep inside neighbouring northern Iraq.

Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, since the group began its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

The Turkish military said several PKK commanders were also forced to flee Turkey due to the ongoing air raids.

“What they have seen has begun to turn their sweet dreams into nightmares,” the General Staff said in the statement. The military also raised the death toll for its May 1-2 aerial campaign against PKK hideouts in northern Iraq to 200 rebels from around 150.