It was one of the highest casualty tolls in a single day of the conflict in recent years. Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast has been rocked by waves of violence following the collapse of a 2-1/2-year ceasefire between the state and the PKK last year.
The military said in a statement that more than 100 PKK militants had been "neutralized" in clashes, without specifying how many were killed and how many wounded. It said most had been taken back to northern Iraq, where the PKK has mountain camps.