Turkish warplanes reportedly bombed Kurdish rebel targets along the Iraqi border on Wednesday as government and military leaders met to consider whether to launch operations across the frontier.
Fighter jets bombed and destroyed several Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) mountain positions in Sirnak, Hakkari, Siirt and Van provinces which are on the borders with Iraq and Iran, the semi-official Anatolia news agency said.
Helicopter gunships also took part in the raids that followed the killing of 12 soldiers in a PKK ambush near the Iraqi border on Sunday. The PKK said it captured eight soldiers in the clashes.
Another operation against the PKK, backed by air cover, was underway in the eastern province of Tunceli, Anatolia said, adding that suspected PKK militants detonated two remote-control bombs as soldiers combed a rural area for landmines.
The military said 34 PKK militants had been killed in operations since Sunday's attack, which increased pressure on Ankara for a military incursion into northern Iraq, where the rebels take refuge.
The National Security Council met amid new international appeals for restraint and signs that Baghdad might hand some rebels over to prevent a Turkish military strike.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan that he "did not exclude the possibility" of extraditing separatist fighters when the two met in Baghdad on Tuesday, a Turkish government source said Babacan said Iraq should hand over about 100 PKK members whose names figured on a list sent to Baghdad earlier this year, added the source. The issue will be taken up during talks in Ankara on Thursday with an Iraqi security delegation.
President Abdullah Gul led the National Security Council meeting of top military officers and senior ministers to discuss options for tackling the PKK, which has been fighting for self-rule in south-east Turkey since 1984. Babacan said Ankara would not flinch from military action if the Iraq and the United States did not clamp down on PKK bases in northern Iraq.