Ankara - Turkish warplanes on Tuesday continued bombing missions against suspected Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq, the Turkish General Staff announced.

A statement posted on the General Staff official website said Turkish Air Force jets hit 21 suspected PKK targets early Tuesday morning in the region of Avasin and the mountains of Iki Yaka and Buzul.

All of the planes returned safely to their bases after completing their missions, the statement said.

The attacks are the fourth since a PKK attack on a military border post on Friday left 17 soldiers and 23 PKK separatists dead.

The PKK uses mountainous northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks inside Turkey.

A military spokesman on Sunday said the administration of the Kurdish autonomous area in Iraq had not helped in the fight against the PKK, despite overtures by Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talabani.

After the attack, Talabani called his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul to propose a meeting of high-ranking security experts from both sides.

Ankara blames the separatist group for the deaths of more than 35,000 people since the early 1980s when the PKK began its fight for independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east of Turkey.

The PKK is considered by the United States and the European Union to be a terrorist group. (dpa)