QANDIL Turkish warplanes and Iranian artillery bombarded Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq on Monday, a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) spokesman said.

'Turkish planes and Iranian artillery bombarded Aquwan and the Iranians bombarded Maradu. The bombardment lasted for about one hour starting from 7pm (1600 GMT),' the spokesman, Ahmed Denis, told AFP.

The spokesman had no immediate word on any casualties.

The fresh bombardment of the remote mountains where the borders of Iraq, Iran and Turkey meet follows talks in Ankara on December 24 between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Iraqi counterpart Nuri al-Maliki.

In those talks, the two governments agreed to step up cooperation against PKK rebels operating rear-bases in northern Iraq.

Denis criticised the Iraqi position, accusing it of compromising its sovereignty. 'How could they allow a neighbouring country to bombard their own land and people?' he asked.

Blacklisted as a terror group by the European Union and the United States, the PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkeys Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, triggering a conflict that has claimed some 44,000 lives.

Iran too has accused the Iraqi Kurds of harbouring rear-bases for rebels operating inside its territory.