August 23, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-us-Sani 24, 1424

ANKARA, Aug 22: Three Kurdish guerrillas and two Turkish soldiers were killed on Friday during a fierce gun battle in Turkey’s troubled southeast.

Seven Turkish soldiers were also injured in the firefight, a military official told Reuters on usual condition of anonymity.

The battle, which began late on Thursday, was still raging between the Turkish army and scores of Turkish Kurdish militants in the mountain terrain of Turkey’s Batman province, some 80 km from the border with Iraq.

Ankara is hunting hundreds of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas it says are returning from Iraq to Turkey.

The US has pledged to work with Turkey to eradicate the threat posed by the PKK in northern Iraq.

Turkey stations thousands of troops just inside the border with Iraq in a controversial deployment it says is necessary to halt PKK attacks on Turkish targets.—Reuters