A first lieutenant was killed and two village guards wounded in a mine blast blamed on Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported on Tuesday.
The explosion happened when the patrol vehicle the lieutenant was riding in hit the landmine planted by the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) on a road near Yesiltas village in Yuksekova town of Hakkari province, said the report.
Soldiers launched a large scale security operation in the area after the blast, the report added.
The PKK has increased attacks on Turkish troops in southeastern Turkey in recent months, which led to rising Turkish demands for an incursion into northern Iraq to crush the rebels.
The PKK launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Source: Xinhua
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