Nine Turkish security officials, including soldiers and policemen, and at least 20 Kurdish PKK members others have been killed during clashes near the southeastern border with Syria and Iraq, security sources said on Monday.

“Nine security agents were killed and eight others wounded,” said Vahdettin Ozkan, governor of Sirnak province, while other local sources said about 20 members of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had also died.

Fighting between the Turkish army and PKK members from the outlawed PKK has intensified in recent months, a development which some Turkish officials and analysts have linked to the chaos in Syria.

The militants killed five soldiers in a bomb attack on a military convoy two weeks ago. The Turkish military retaliated quickly, killing 21 PKK members in an operation involving helicopter gunships.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict between the PKK and Turkish forces since the militants launched their insurgency 28 years ago with the aim of carving out a separate state in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey.

Since June last year, nearly 800 people have died in the conflict in Turkey, including about 500 PKK members, more than 200 security personnel and about 85 civilians, according to estimates by think-tank International Crisis Group.

fficials blamed it for a car bombing last month which killed nine people in the city of Gaziantep, near Turkey's southeastern border with Syria.