IRNA--  the guard died in a shootout on Monday while another border guard and two engineers who were inspecting nearby water resources were wounded.

The attack happened near the town of Maku in Iran's West Azerbaijan province, about 900 kilometers, or 560 miles, northwest of Tehran. The province has a large Kurdish minority.

Gunmen were members of Turkey's Kurdish separatist P.K.K. group and that Ankara has promised to investigate.

The area near Iran's borders with Turkey and Iraq sees occasional skirmishes with Kurdish separatist groups, as well as extremist Islamic rebels. Last month, militants killed eight Iranian border guards in clashes there.