A group of militants of the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) kidnapped a contractor in eastern Turkey on Tuesday, private Dogan news agency reported.

The armed PKK militants gathered together workers at a site of road construction at Sirinler village between the towns of Kigi and Yayladere in Bingol province, according to the report.

After collecting workers' mobile phones, the PKK members kidnapped contractor Muhsin Orak and brought him to the forest area in the region, the report said.

Turkish security forces have launched an operation to capture the PKK rebels and save the contractor, the report added.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and some other countries, took up arms in 1984 in an attempt to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.