TUNCELI, Turkey, Oct 7 (Reuters) - A Kurdish militant was killed and three Turkish soldiers wounded in heavy fighting in the country's southeastern province of Sirnak, security officials said on Sunday.

The violence comes a week after members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) stopped a minibus in the same province and killed 12 passengers. A Turkish soldier was also killed in the region on Saturday.

Pockets of intense fighting between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish military was ongoing in the region, said the provincial governor of Tunceli.

The military is stepping up operations in Turkey's troubled Southeast before winter, when harsh conditions slow down the movement of Kurdish rebels in the region.

Security officials said they found and confiscated five kgs of explosives near a village in Tunceli province. Another five kgs of explosives laid on a Southeastern road were also defused, security officials said.

Ankara blames the outlawed PKK for the death of 30,000 people since 1984, when the group began an armed struggle for a Kurdish homeland in Turkey's Southeast.

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