Fifteen Turkish soldiers have been killed in clashes with Kurdish separatist rebels in southeast Turkey.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on the military this year.
At least 23 members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party were also killed after rebels armed with heavy weapons attacked a military outpost in the Semdinli region bordering Iraq and Iran.
The attack is likely to put pressure on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to strike back at the PKK.
Turkey has attacked PKK bases in mountainous northern Iraq several times over the past 12 months, but has confined itself to shelling and air strikes since a brief land offensive in February.
The General Staff said two Turkish soldiers were missing and that an operation was under way to rescue them. It said the rebels had received back-up from PKK bases in Iraq.
Turkey blames the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by the US and the EU, for the deaths of more than 40,000 people since it launched its campaign for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.
