Two policemen were killed on Wednesday when a mine exploded at a village in Tunceli province in eastern Turkey, damaging a police vehicle, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

The mine exploded when the police vehicle rolled over the mine at Dereova village in Nazimiye town of Tunceli province, according to the report.

Many policemen and security forces were dispatched to the scene in the region in fight against militants of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), who probably planted mines in eastern and southeastern Turkey.

Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms in 1984 in order to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.

Some 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the PKK for the past over two decades.