Separatist Kurdish rebels have abducted a Turkish soldier and a local official in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast, security sources said Saturday.
Members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) stopped a civilian minibus overnight on the road in Senyayla region in Diyarbakir province, the largest city of the southeast, they said.
The rebels checked the IDs of the passengers and took the two hostages. The local official is an intern at the district governor's office in nearby Mus province, sources said.
A search operation has been launched to hunt down the kidnappers.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, has carried out reprisal abductions in the past.
Last month they abducted two soldiers and a health worker near Diyarbakir.
The group took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.
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