SIRNAK: Three soldiers were killed and ten others were wounded in Turkey's southeastern Sirnak province on Wednesday in an attack believed to have been carried out by militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), security sources said.

Militants opened fire with rockets and long-range weapons from across northern Iraq into a road near the Uludere district, hitting a military vehicle as it passed, the sources said.

The security sources had initially said five soldiers had been killed and eight wounded.

Turkey's southeast has seen the worst violence in two decades since the PKK abandoned a 2-1/2-year ceasefire last year.

The PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the ensuing violence.