Turkish strikes hit suspected PKK sites in Iraq's Dohuk

Shafaq News/ Turkish warplanes struck suspected Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) sites in Kurdistan's northern governorate of Duhok on Thursday, a security source said.

The airstrikes targeted areas near the village of Serkeli near Mount Matin and  Mount Gara, the source told Shafaq News Agency.

The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union, maintains bases in the mountains of northern Iraq from where it wages an insurgency against the Turkish state.

The source said PKK fighters use caves and tunnels in the targeted areas "as positions to launch attacks against Turkish forces stationed nearby."

Last month, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held talks with officials in Baghdad and Erbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdistan autonomous region, about the continued presence of PKK fighters in northern Iraq.

Baghdad labelled the group a "banned organisation" in March.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the insurgency. The conflict was long fought mainly in rural areas of southeastern Turkiye but is now more focused on the mountains of northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.