Turkey announced on Tuesday that its forces may enter the Iraqi Kurdistan Qandil Mountains region “at any moment.”
The region is a stronghold for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is viewed as terrorist by Ankara.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened a major cross-border operation to dislodge the group from its strongholds.
“We will continue the fight in Syria and Iraq until the last remaining terrorist, who had directed his weapons against us, is eliminated,” he vowed before a popular gathering on Tuesday.
Turkish government spokesperson Bekir Bozdag stated on Monday that “anything was possible at any moment” in regards to the Qandil region.
He revealed that his country had carried out several operations in the area, adding that it reserves the right to launch military operations against “terrorist positions”.
Several Turkish troops have been killed in the Qandil region in recent months during clashes with the PKK, although the authorities remain vague over where the fighting is taking place.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told the state-run Anadolu news agency the target was the Qandil mountains, the PKK's key military base.
"Qandil is not a distant target for us," Soylu said.
"Right now several areas were taken under control, especially in the northern Iraqi region," he added.
Outlawed by Ankara and its Western allies, the PKK has waged a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, and the army is battling the group's militants both inside Turkey and in northern Iraq.
The operations inside northern Iraq come as Turkey prepares for June 24 parliamentary and presidential elections.
Ankara earlier this year successfully carried out a major incursion into Syria along with allied Syrian rebels, taking the Afrin region from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units.
