A spokesman for the PKK in northern Iraq, Zagros Hiwa, told the BBC that Syrian Kurdish militia had the right to continue fighting "until the Turkish state... is ousted out of Syria".

Hiwa's comments come after this month's Turkish offensive, which ended in agreements reached with the US and Russia to ensure the withdrawal of the Kurdish YPG militia from areas along Turkey's border with Syria.

The PKK, seen as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

It has rear bases in the Qandil mountain area of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

Turkey views the YPG as being an extension of the PKK and therefore also a terrorist organisation.

Hiwa insisted that the Syrian Kurdish forces and the PKK were "not associated".

"We have never used... north-east Syria in order to wage attacks against the Turkish state," he added.

The two groups had worked together in operations against the Islamic State group, also known as Daesh, he said.

"All the support which we have been giving to the Syrian Kurds has been to defend themselves against the attacks of Daesh," Hiwa said.

Pressed on whether the PKK's own actions have led to the loss of civilian life, Hiwa said: "We have been defending our people, we have been defending the rights of the Kurds against the policies of denial of the Turkish state."

He described the war in north-eastern Syria as "a war of existence for the Kurds".

Russia said Tuesday that Kurdish forces had completed the pullout from areas near the Turkish border as planned under the terms of the Russia-Turkey agreement struck last week.

Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar was quoted by local media as saying joint Turkish-Russian patrols to verify the pullout would begin "soon".