Some 23 members of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were killed in a Turkish air strike against the group's bases in northern Iraq Saturday, the army said, amounting what would be the deadliest such attack in recent years.

Turkish special forces have been dispatched to the border region with Iraq to prevent rebel infiltration, local media reported.

Meanwhile, the PKK claimed in a statement Monday it had the bodies of two of the more than dozen soldiers killed in its own raid on a border outpost in southeastern Turkey.

Both sides have offered conflicting reports of the casualties sustained in Friday's rebel attack.

The Turkish military has said at least 15 soldiers were killed and two more were missing in strikes by the PKK who snuck from their Iraqi bases.

But in a statement carried by an agency close to the rebels, the PKK claimed it had killed 62 soldiers and wounded more than 30 others in the clashes. It put its own losses at nine rebels.

On Sunday, Erdogan launched a fresh appeal to Iraqi Kurds to clamp down on PKK bases on their territory.

"We're awaiting positive acts on the ground," he said.

The clashes take place just days before the Turkish parliament votes on extending by one year the government's mandate to order military strikes against PKK bases in northern Iraq.