"The military operation took place this morning in the Shemdinyan (Semdinli in Turkish) area, in Hakkari province, and Turkish warplanes have started to attack the Khwakorek district inside Iraqi territory," PKK spokesman Ahmed Denis told AFP in the Iraqi Kurdistan regional capital of Arbil.

"We have no information so far about any casualties as the clashes are continuing between the PKK and the Turkish army inside Turkey," Denis added.

The Turkish army said the overnight attack had killed eight soldiers and wounded 14.

Warplanes then launched a bombing raid targeting suspected PKK positions across the border in northern Iraq, the army added.

On Friday, the Turkish military said that at least 130 members of the PKK had been killed inside Turkey and in an air raid on rebel hideouts in Iraq since violence flared anew in March.

The military lost 43 troops over the same period, it added.

On Wednesday, Turkish troops carried out their first ground incursion into Iraq in two and a half years, penetrating two kilometres (more than a mile) into the Haft Tanin district of Dohuk province, one of three that make up the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

"Two of our men were killed in the clashes that took place on Wednesday between the Turkish army and members of our party in Haft Tanin," Denis told AFP on Friday.

Semdinli in the far southeast of Turkey, where its borders with Iran and Iraq meet, is an emblematic target for the PKK as it is one of two places in Turkey that it attacked in 1984 when it announced the launch of its armed insurgency for Kurdish self-rule.

The town lies just across the border from the rugged Qandil mountains of far northeastern Iraq where the PKK maintains rear bases that have been repeatedly bombed or shelled by both Turkish and Iranian forces.