Gunmen Badly Wound Turkish Soldier in Kurdish City

A Turkish soldier was on Wednesday fighting for his life in hospital after being shot by two masked gunmen in Turkey's biggest Kurdish-populated city of Diyarbakir in the southeast of the country, the army said.

Non-commissioned officer Nejdet Aydogdu was out shopping with his wife in central Diyarbakir when he was fired at by the gunmen at close range, it said in a statement.

He was hospitalized in intensive care with life threatening injuries, it added.

The army did not say who committed the attack.

However it had earlier reaffirmed that a similar attack at the weekend which killed three soldiers in Yuksekova in the mainly Kurdish Hakkari province was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

That attack was also committed by masked gunmen in a busy street at a similar afternoon time.

The PKK has waged a three-decade insurgency for self-rule and greater rights in southeast Turkey but largely observed a ceasefire since March 2013 amid a fragile peace process.

But there has been an increase in militant violence in the southeast following deadly protests earlier this month against the government's handling of efforts to counter jihadists across the border in Syria.

The PKK's armed wing this week issued a statement denying responsibility for the Yuksekova attack and some analysts believe the group may be split over its strategy in the peace process.