ANKARA, Turkey - Soldiers battled separatist Kurdish rebels across southeast Turkey, trapping about 100 in caves near the Iraqi border after blocking escape routes across the frontier, Turkey's state-run news agency reported Monday.
The guerrillas denied the report.
President Abdullah Gul pledged to remain resolute in the fight against the rebels, addressing the nation as massive military parades across the country celebrated the 84th anniversary of the Turkish republic.
"The struggle that we have been leading for a long time, as a nation, against this terrorism curse is now being led with more determination," he said after a parade through the capital with Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, the head of the military.
The two men waved and saluted from an open-topped Cadillac, following a ceremonial cavalry troop as fighter jets flew in formation overhead.
The official Anatolia news agency said troops had trapped the group of about 100 rebels in the Ikiyaka mountains in Hakkari province, forcing them to hide in caves.
But a Kurdish rebel spokesman told The Associated Press that the report was "baseless."
"There was no fighting in this area between the PKK and the Turkish army," spokesman Abdul-Rahman al-Chaderchi said by telephone. "Such allegations are part of the Turkish propaganda against the PKK."
The military in Hakkari has been shelling mountain passes used by the rebels to escape to bases in Iraq.
Troops backed by attack helicopters were also battling rebels in Sirnak province on the border with Iraq, Anatolia reported. One soldier was killed in the fighting, private Dogan news agency reported, without citing sources.
AP journalists nearby saw three Cobra attack helicopters bombing targets on Mount Cudi, on the Iraqi border. Smoke could be seen rising from the area. Machine gun and mortar or artillery fire could also be heard.
The Cobras hit "suspected rebel positions" on the mountain as part of an ongoing operation, Anatolia reported. It did not say if there were casualties.
Clashes continued in Tunceli province, northwest of the border, where 15 Kurdish rebels were reportedly killed in the first day of a Turkish military operation on Sunday.
About 8,000 troops have been scouring a central area of the province in ground and helicopter patrols for guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, the private Dogan news agency reported from the region.
A soldier was killed after stepping on a land mine believed to have been planted by the rebels, officials said. And Dogan reported that two more guerrillas were killed, bringing the total since Sunday to 17.
PKK fighters have killed at least 43 people in the past month. Those casualties include about 30 Turkish soldiers in two ambushes that were the boldest attacks in years -- increasing domestic pressure on Turkey to stage a cross-border military offensive to hunt down the rebels if the U.S. and Iraq do not crack down on the insurgents.
Such a campaign could disrupt one of the few stable areas in Iraq and leave the United States in an awkward position with key allies: NATO-member Turkey, the Baghdad government and the self-governing Iraqi Kurds in the north.
Concerns that Turkey may send troops south across the border helped send oil prices above $93 a barrel to a new trading high in Asia on Monday.
There were also reports of attacks on Kurdish businesses by nationalists in at least two Turkish cities.
The independent Radikal newspaper said youths looted a shop owned by Kurds in the northwestern city of Bursa. Nationalists attacked coffee houses run by Kurds in the southern province of Mugla, it said.
