TUNCELI, Turkey, May 27 (Reuters) - Fighting broke out between the Turkish military and armed Kurdish rebels in a remote region of northern Iraq at the weekend with conflicting reports of casualties on both sides.

Some 700 Turkish soldiers battled late on Sunday with more than 500 Kurdish guerrillas of the People's Defence Force (HSK), an armed wing of Turkey-based Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK), the HSK said in a statement to the Mezopotamya News Agency.

"The Turkish armed forces last night attacked the People's Defence Force in the Haftanin province (of northern Iraq). One militant was killed and five seriously injured. Fifteen Turkish soldiers were killed," the statement said.

Military sources in southeast Turkey confirmed the clashes, but said the army had suffered no casualties while some Kurdish militants had died.

KADEK is a new group formed by members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who said last month they would regroup under a new name, a move denounced by Ankara as meaningless.

The European Union recently added the PKK to its list of "terrorist" groups.

The Kurdish insurgency started in 1984, but has been reduced to sporadic clashes since the 1999 capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, now on death row.

Ocalan has ordered his followers to withdraw from Turkey and seek cultural rights for the country's 12 million Kurds through political channels.

Turkey is pursuing several thousand PKK guerrillas it says are now based in a Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq.