ISTANBUL, April 26: Turkey said its warplanes struck Kurdish separatist targets inside northern Iraq on Friday and Saturday in what military sources called the biggest Turkish air operation in northern Iraq this year.

A Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) spokesman said the bombing had caused no casualties.

Turkey has carried out a series of air strikes in northern Iraq since the end of a cross-border land offensive in February, which prompted concern in Washington about further regional instability and was watched closely in financial markets.

It was the second Turkish air strike this week on northern Iraq, which the PKK uses as a base from which to launch attacks in Turkey, after an operation on Wednesday.

Military sources had said on Friday that the air operation began about 7:30pm and said later it continued into the early hours of Saturday.—Reuters