FACTBOX: Turkish incursions into Northern Iraq

(Reuters) - Turkey's government has given the country's armed forces the authority to conduct a cross-border operation against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

Here are some details about previous incursions against Kurdish rebels:

* BACKGROUND:

-- The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK or Kongra-Gel), founded in 1978 as a Marxist-Leninist insurgent group, has been fighting for an independent Kurdish state.

-- The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. It has been blamed for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since it launched its armed struggle for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

-- Washington and Baghdad have so far failed to take action against the estimated 3,000 PKK guerrillas hiding in northern Iraq, despite repeated Turkish appeals over a number of years.

* MAJOR INCURSIONS:

* 1995:

-- Turkey mounted a six-week, 35,000-man operation into the Kurdish-held northern Iraqi regions on March 20, but failed to achieve its stated aim of clearing the area of the PKK. The offensive ended on May 2.