The Turkish airplanes have been further bombing the positions of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in north of Iraq as PKK rebels increased their attacks against Turkish military and civilian targets.
The Turkish General Staff said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday that Turkish airplanes hit PKK targets in north of Iraq.
The General Staff said that Turkish jets bombed PKK targets in Zap-Sivi, Avasin-Basyan and Hakurk regions in northern Iraq.
"We have targeted only the PKK camps in the air strike. The General Staff is sensitive not to affect civilian people in the region," said the statement, adding that Turkish jets had accomplished their mission and returned safely to their bases.
"The terrorist organization PKK ... has once more showed its real face with its recent attacks, and has become the target of all the civilized world who adopt fundamental values of humanity," added the statement.
An Iraqi Kurdish official was quoted by CNN Turk as saying earlier in the day that Turkish jets bombed PKK targets near the town of Hakurk, which was close to Iraq's border with Iran and Turkey.
Meanwhile, a Kurdish security source in northern Iraq told Xinhua that Turkish aircraft and artillery pounded Iraqi areas near the border in Duhuk province without causing casualties.
"The Turkish aircraft and artillery shelled in the morning the villages of Narwa, Raykan and Nahaly near the town of Amadiyah in Duhuk province," the source, from the Kurdish border guards, told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The attacks, which targeted areas close to the Iraqi border with Turkey, caused no casualties, the source said.
The Turkish military operation came one day after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in the Spanish capital on Monday that his government would seek an extension of its parliamentary mandate, which expires in October, to attack PKK targets in northern Iraq if PKK separatists continue attacks against Turkey.
"We would hope our fight against terrorism finishes soon, but I can't say when it will end," Erdogan told business leaders in Madrid.
Earlier this month, a strong explosion rocked the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, killing six people, including five school students, and injuring 67 others, including 30 military personnel.
The bomb attack targeted a military personnel bus in Diyarbakir, where most Kurds are living.
The attack was staged by a car bomb when the bus was passing near Dedeman Hotel at Mimar Sinan Street in Diyarbakir's Yenisehir district, local police had said.
Diyarbakir, which is the biggest city in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, is home to a large number of Turkish troops who are fighting PKK rebels both inside Turkey and in neighboring Iraq.
Erdogan had said that terrorism showed its bloody face again in Diyarbakir, noting that Turkey will continue fight terrorism with determination on both national and international dimensions.
The Turkish military has recently launched several cross-border attacks to fight against PKK separatists, who use the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq as a launch pad for attacks against Turkey.
The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.
Source:Xinhua
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