Turk president: anti-PKK strike among most important

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Friday the Turkish military's latest air strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq were among the most significant blows yet against the militants.

The Turkish army said on Saturday it had killed more than 150 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas in air strikes at the start of the month. The rebel group denied this.

Gul was speaking at a reception in the presidential palace for Europe Day. He did not give further details.

The military had said Turkish warplanes bombed targets in the Qandil mountain region of northern Iraq last Thursday and Friday and said senior PKK members might be among those killed.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, since the group began its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

In recent months, the Turkish air force has launched regular operations against PKK targets in northern Iraq from where several thousand guerrillas launch attacks into southeast Turkey.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organisation.

Turkish troops conducted an eight-day large-scale incursion across the border in February in which the army said it killed 240 guerrillas and lost 27 of its own men.

(Reporting by Zerin Elci, editing by Ralph Boulton)