"There are no clashes with the Turkish army," said the official, reached by telephone at a rebel base near the Iraq-Turkey frontier from Arbil, capital of Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region.

"Our area is quiet. Nothing has happened. There are no air strikes nor any artillery shells," added the official, who asked not to be named.

"There has been no crossing of Turkish troops into the Kurdistan region."

The Turkish army said it had inflicted "heavy losses" on a group of around 50 members of the separatist movement in northern Iraq earlier in the day.

It said it used artillery and air strikes against a group of "50 to 60 terrorists" southeast of the Turkish town of Cukurca in Hakkari province on the Turkey-Iraq border.

"If necessary other army units will intervene in the region," it added.