ANKARA, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - Over 30 militants of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have been killed in southeast Turkey near the Iraqi border, the country's general staff announced on Friday.

The general staff claimed the information had come from intercepted radio communications between PKK militants following a military operation in the Sirnak province on the Iraqi border.

"Over 30 terrorists have been killed, some of the dead were buried where they fell, the rest the militants took with them," the source said.

The militants were believed to have been killed in a large-scale military operation on October 14, when they tried to cross the border into Turkey from Iraq.

The Kurdish deaths have not been confirmed.

On Thursday five Turkish soldiers were killed in fighting with Kurdish militants in another border province of Hakkari.

The PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the EU, the United States and many other countries, has been fighting for an autonomous ethnic Kurd state in southeast Turkey for nearly 25 years. The conflict has claimed over 40,000 lives.