DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 31 (AFP) - 11h35 - A member of the Turkish paramilitary forces in the predominantly Kurdish region of southeast Turkey was killed early Sunday in clashes with rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), local security sources said.Another member of the so-called "village guardians" -- paramilitaries recruited by Ankara to protect villages in the volatile southeast region -- was wounded in the fighting in a mountainous region about 70 kilometersmiles) north of Diyarbakir, the sources said.

An operation was launched to hunt down the assailants, the sources added.

The PKK has stepped up violence in the southeast over the past several months, after it called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004 on grounds that reforms by Ankara to expand Kurdish freedoms were inadequate.

The group, blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, was also blamed for a July 16 bomb attack in a popular seaside resort in the west which killed five people including foreign tourists.

The bloody conflict between the PKK and Turkish army between 1984 and 1999 left some 37,000 people dead.