A Turkish police officer has been killed and eight others have been injured in an attack blamed on the militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey.

The PKK militants detonated an improvised explosive device on Saturday as a police vehicle was passing through an area in Hakkari province, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

PKK militants regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq.

Turkey, along with the European Union and the United States, has declared the PKK a terrorist group and has banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against the PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.

More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.