ISTANBUL — In one of the deadliest attacks in recent months, Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey attacked a military post in a far eastern town on Saturday, killing 8 soldiers and wounding at least 14, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported.

In response, Turkish warplanes pounded the border region, which in summer is often populated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, whose rebels come down from their bases around the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq to carry out attacks inside Turkey.

At least 12 Kurdish militants were killed in a land and air operation around Hakkari, and inside northern Iraq, according to a statement from the military. The rebels had struck earlier on the outskirts of Hakkari, according to the news agency.

Two more soldiers were killed in a land-mine explosion in pursuit of rebels, the private NTV network reported.

Tensions have been escalating along Turkey’s border with Iraq, with at least 130 rebel fighters and 43 members of the Turkish security forces killed in air raids and incursions in northern Iraq since March, the military said in a statement on Friday.

The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party have initiated further democratic and cultural rights for Turkey’s Kurdish population, which numbers more than 12 million in a country of 70 million.

But it has dismissed some of their demands, like constitutional recognition of their ethnic identity and a general amnesty for the militants.

Mr. Erdogan disputes claims that rising violence is a sign of the government’s failing policies, and argues that attacks are merely an effort by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and arms lobbies to derail his government’s democratization efforts.

A statement on Saturday by President Abdullah Gul echoed the prime minister’s views.

“The biggest fear of terror organizations has always been real democracy,” Mr. Gul said in the statement.