Two civilians were killed Sunday in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region by a Turkish army bombardment as forces battled the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels, local officials said.

Turkey regularly targets northwest Iraq in operations against the PKK, which Ankara considers a terrorist organisation.

The Kurdish separatists have waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey, and maintain bases in the rugged mountains across the border in Iraq.

The latest violence comes six days before a regional summit in Baghdad.

The Iraqi civilians were killed in Iraq's Zakho district, an area bordering Turkey, said local mayor Farhad Mahmoud.

"They had gone to an area where it is advised not to go," Mahmoud said, adding that they were not from the area, but had been visiting from the city of Mosul. "They were caught in a Turkish bombing and died."

PKK fighters said clashes were ongoing Sunday.

Turkey has installed around a dozen military bases over the past 25 years in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, and it launched a new cross-border offensive in April against the PKK, consisting of both aerial and ground attacks.

Residents of dozens of villages in the area have fled the conflict.

On Tuesday, eight people died in a Turkish airstrike in northern Iraq's Sinjar region.

Repeated Turkish raids have stoked tensions with Baghdad, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that his country will "deal with" the PKK presence if Iraq is unable to do so.

On Wednesday, Iraq's national security council condemned "unilateral military actions" and rejected "the use of Iraqi land for settling scores", but did not specifically mention of Turkey.

Ankara is one of Baghdad's key trading partners, and Erdogan has been invited to next week's regional summit in Baghdad.

But it is not known if Erdogan will attend, or if Turkish operations in Iraq will be discussed.

Turkey denies targeting clinic in Iraq air strike
Ankara (AFP) Aug 21, 2021 - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied Saturday that an air raid in northwest Iraq earlier this week, in which eight people died, had targeted a clinic, insisting the facility housed members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Ankara considers a terrorist organisation.

"Contrary to the allegations of the terrorist organisation, the target that was hit was not a hospital or a medical centre, but was one of the places of accommodation of the organisation," Erdogan said in a telephone call with Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa al-Kadhemi.

Initially, the death toll in the air raid on Tuesday in Iraq's Sinjar province had been put at three, but Iraqi officials said the day after that the number of dead had risen to eight.

Among the dead were four employees of the clinic and four fighters from the PKK-linked 80th Brigade of Iraq's powerful, state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi coalition.

The 80th Brigade is made up of Iraq's Yazidi minority, who were persecuted by the Islamic State group from 2014 and whose bastion is Sinjar.

One local source said drones were used in the attack.

Repeated Turkish raids have stoked tensions with Baghdad, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that his country will "deal with" the PKK presence if Iraq is unable to do so.

Iraq regularly decries violations of its sovereignty and has repeatedly summoned the Turkish ambassador over Ankara's cross-border military campaign.

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