Turkey says kills 150 PKK rebels, group denies it

By Selcuk Gokoluk

ANKARA (Reuters) - The Turkish army said on Saturday that it killed more than 150 Kurdish PKK fighters in air strikes in northern Iraq this week, but the rebel group denied this and security forces in the region also expressed scepticism.

The Turkish General Staff, in a statement on its website, said its warplanes had destroyed all the PKK posts they had targeted in bombing operations in Iraq's Qandil area on Thursday and Friday.

"It was established that more than 150 terrorists were left ineffective and the operation caused a big panic among the terror organisation's members," the statement said. The Turkish army uses the term "ineffective" to mean killed.

Senior PKK members might be among the killed, it added.

The PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which is fighting for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey and operates from bases in northern Iraq, denied this.

"There were not 150 PKK fighters killed. This is totally inaccurate," PKK spokesman Ahmed Danees told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location in northern Iraq.

He said the air strikes had killed six Kurdish rebels from a different faction that is fighting Iran. The strikes took place near an area where the borders of Iraq, Turkey and Iran meet.

Iranian forces have also often clashed in Iraqi border areas with rebels from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the PKK and which analysts say has bases in northeastern Iraq from where they operate against Iran.