Militants kill Turkish soldier on patrol -TV

ANKARA, Aug 19 (Reuters) Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels killed a Turkish soldier on patrol in southern Turkey today, private broadcaster CNN Turk reported.

The attack on the soldiers' vehicle was in the southern province of Osmaniye, much further west than areas where clashes with the PKK -- which is fighting for a homeland in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey -- tend to occur.

It was the second military casualty of the weekend, after a soldier was killed in a clash with PKK rebels near the border with Iraq yesterday.

Dozens of soldiers have been killed this year in an escalation of separatist violence, leading to calls from the army for parliamentary approval of a cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to deal with thousands of rebels based there.

The AK Party government, reelected last month, has resisted the army's calls without ruling out a move over the border.

Senior security sources say Ankara has raised troop levels in the southeast to more than 200,000 as part of a crackdown on the PKK, which has been fighting since 1984.

REUTERS SBC PM2328