ANKARA/ARBIL: Turkish warplanes and artillery attacked 31 Kurdish rebel bases on Friday as part of a week-long operation in northern Iraq after an attack that killed 17 Turkish soldiers, the military said.

Ahmed Danees, spokesman for the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq, said new shelling had taken place in mountainous areas inside Iraq for about an hour on Saturday but gave no further details.

The Turkish president said on Saturday for the first time publicly that Ankara was talking to the Iraqi Kurdish government about acting against the PKK, which launches attacks on Turkey from bases in northern Iraq.

Turkey has in the past publicly shunned the Iraqi Kurds, blaming them for not doing enough to drive out the PKK, and said it was dealing with the central government in Baghdad.

The military has stepped up its operations against the PKK in southeast Turkey and across the border in Iraq after deadly attacks by the separatists on Turkish soldiers a week ago.

An army statement issued on Saturday said Turkish planes and artillery attacked the 31 PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Hakurk region around midnight on Friday and the operation was successful.

The military did not say what damage was caused or if there had been any casualties. A PKK spokesman said the guerrillas suffered no casualties.

Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Kurdish Peshmerga security forces, said Turkish shelling took place overnight.

President Abdullah Gul confirmed talks with the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, earlier reported by Turkish TV, saying Turkey had talked with the Iraqi Kurds in the past seeking cooperation against the PKK. “This is not new ... I find it very right and there is nothing more normal than this,” Gul told a news conference. He said PKK activities were of concern to Iraqi Kurdish leaders.

Turkish TV said the government would consider inviting Nechirvan Barzani, who heads the Iraqi Kurdish regional government, to Turkey to seek help against the PKK. Falah Mustafa, foreign policy chief for the Iraqi Kurdish government, welcomed direct dialogue with Turkey.

“...we believe that it would contribute greatly in solving the disputes and existing problems, knowing that there are good economic and commercial relations between the Kurdistan regional government and Turkey,” he told Reuters.

Turkey’s parliament on Wednesday extended for another year a mandate for the military to launch operations against PKK rebels based in northern Iraq.

Turkish police detained a woman in central Istanbul preparing for a suicide attack on Saturday.

“This was a suicide bomber and we know that she is a member of the terrorist organisation,” Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said in televised remarks, referring to the PKK.

The PKK has carried out attacks in Turkey’s big cities and especially Istanbul in the past. More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its armed campaign for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.