DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, May 3 (Reuters) - Two Kurdish rebels were killed in clashes with Turkish troops in Sirnak province in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeastern region, officials said on Thursday. In a separate incident, a soldier died after stepping on a landmine laid by the rebels in the province of Hakkari near the border with Iraq, CNN Turk television channel reported. Security forces confiscated arms and explosive materials they found on the rebels killed in the firefight, the local governor's office said on its Web site. The latest deaths come amid an annual spring offensive by the Turkish military trying to catch or kill rebels crossing into Turkey from mountain hideouts in northern Iraq. More than 30,000 people have been killed since the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) launched its armed campaign for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984. The United States and the European Union, as well as Turkey, consider the PKK a terrorist organisation.
