Migrants on a Turkish beach scuffled over places on one inflatable dinghy and frantically bailed out another to keep it from sinking during a dramatic night that highlighted their desperation to reach the Greek island of Kos — and the safety of Europe.

The scenes of human trafficking, captured early Saturday by Associated Press journalists on a moonless night, came as Turkish authorities reported that 2,791 migrants have been caught in the Aegean Sea in the past 5 days alone, most of them Syrians.

A senior figure in the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Friday warned that Turkey would pay "a heavy price" for its offensive against the rebels amid new deadly clashes in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

A 40-year-old man was killed when he was caught in an armed clash between Turkish forces and the PKK in the city of Diyarbakir, security sources told AFP. 

The Turkish military has started building a concrete wall along the border with Syria following a series of attacks, state media said Friday.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) is building the three meter (10 feet) high wall in the Reyhanli district of Hatay province just across from the Syrian town of Atmeh, the official Anatolia news agency said.

With a ceasefire between Turkey and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in tatters, the man who could hold the key to restarting the peace process is sidelined and increasingly isolated on a heavily fortified prison island.

Abdullah Ocalan, the iconic leader of the PKK, has only the most limited access to the outside world from his top security jail on the island of Imrali on the Sea of Marmara following his sensational arrest by Turkish agents in Kenya in 1999.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday that coalition talks with the main opposition party had failed, paving the way for snap legislative elections as Ankara battles its biggest security crisis against militants in years.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its overall majority in June 7 polls for the first time since it came to power in 2002, in a major setback for its co-founder President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

One Turkish soldier and seven suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed in new violence blamed on the Kurdish rebels, the army said Thursday.

The deaths were the latest in an escalating cycle of violence between Turkish security forces and Kurdish rebels that has left a 2013 ceasefire in tatters.

Turkish police and protesters engaged in violent clashes on Wednesday at the funeral of a senior Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) figure killed a day earlier, reports said.

Baris Tekce, known by his nom-de-guerre Andok and described as the top PKK figure in the southeastern Hakkari region, died on Tuesday in clashes with the security forces, Turkish media said.

Turkey is ready to begin operations against Islamic State (IS) jihadists along with its NATO ally the United States after a "pause" for coordination purposes, a Turkish foreign ministry official said on Wednesday.

Ankara launched its first air strikes against IS targets in late July but then put them on hold, instead concentrating its firepower on Kurdish militants in operations that have troubled some allies.

Turkey has arrested and expelled more than 700 "foreign terrorist fighters" so far this year as they were trying to enter Syria, a top official said on Wednesday.

Cemalettin Hasimi, head of media relations for the Turkish prime minister, told reporters in Paris that the rate of expulsions was increasing -- 520 suspected jihadists were intercepted in the whole of 2014.

Iran denied claims it had closed its main border crossing into Turkey Wednesday after an Iranian truck was torched in a fresh attack on vehicles entering from the Islamic republic.

"All the country's land borders... including the one in Bazargan, are open and traffic is passing through," interior ministry Director General Majid Agha-Babaie said.