Several other PKK members simultaneously opened fire on the outpost from a nearby forest, the governor's office said. The attack left seven soldiers dead and seven others injured. One of the injured was in critical condition, authorities said.

  The attack came as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül told European Union officials visiting Ankara that "we have every right to take measures against terrorist activities directed at us from northern Iraq."

  Turkey's political and military leaders have been debating whether to stage an incursion into northern Iraq to try to root out the PKK bases there.

  However, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country holds the EU presidency, said he "did not get the impression that Turkey would stage an incursion."

  On Monday, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported that Turkish troops shelled a border area in northern Iraq for a second day in an attack on the PKK based there.

  The leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, confirmed shelling by Turkish troops on the areas early Sunday but said there was no Turkish incursion.

  On Monday, the Belgium-based Firat news agency, citing Iraqi Kurdish sources, said Turkish artillery again targeted an area close to the border town of Zakho. On Sunday, the agency said the troops shelled the Hakurk area, further east.

  Turkish authorities, who have called the Firat agency a mouthpiece of the PKK, were not immediately available to comment.

  The PKK has long had camps in the Hakurk area, 15 kilometers from the Turkish border.

  Turkish troops have occasionally launched brief raids in pursuit of PKK members in northern Iraq, and have sometimes shelled suspected PKK positions across the border. Turkish authorities rarely acknowledge such military operations, which were more frequent before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

  Turkey has been building up its military forces on the Iraqi border in recent weeks, amid debate over whether to launch a cross border offensive to attack the PKK. The PKK stage raids in southeast Turkey after crossing over from hide-outs in Iraq and have escalated bomb attacks in the west of the country.

  Police on Monday arrested a suspected PKK member who allegedly staged last month's market bombing in the Aegean port city of İzmir that killed one person and injured 15 others.