Turkish aircraft attacked rebel hide-outs and ground troops clashed with Kurdish guerrillas in the snowy mountains of northern Iraq as Turkey’s cross-border military operation ended its fourth day yesterday.

The Iraqi Government demanded that Turkey should withdraw, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, gave fresh reassurances of the limited aim of the operation against the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the bases it uses to launch attacks on Turkey.

The US has confirmed that it was alerted in advance of the biggest ground incursion by Turkey, a Nato ally, into northern Iraq for more than a decade. But Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, said that a campaign without a political and economic dimension would not solve the problems with the PKK and its fight for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey. The Iraqi Government said that the troops should withdraw as soon as possible. In a statement it said: “The Iraqi Government believes that this unilateral Turkish military operation is a threat to the stability of the region and a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

It called for Turkey to sit down for talks over Iraq with the PKK, which Baghdad concedes is a threat to Turkey and the border regions. Mr Erdogan is expected to send an envoy to Baghdad this week.

By late yesterday Turkish military sources said that they had killed at least 112 PKK guerrillas and lost 15 troops in close fighting since the start of the incursion on Thursday night. The PKK said it had shot down a Turkish Cobra attack helicopter and killed nearly 50 troops for the loss of two rebels. Turkey’s General Staff said that 63 targets had been hit and several rebel bases destroyed.

It called for support from Iraqi Kurds — which it had secured during past incursions in the 1990s. The Iraqi Kurdish leadership has threatened that any attacks of Kurdish civilians will result in “massive resistance”. Armed Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security forces have been patrolling the snowy mountain roads of northern Iraq and threatening to fight if Turkish forces stay too long. Yesterday, however, Necirvan Barzani, the senior Iraqi Kurdish leader, said they understood that Turkey had to fight terror.

In Turkey, the campaign has the full-blooded support of a public that had been calling for action since October, when the PKK launched two ambushes on Turkish conscripts from northern Iraq. Thousands of chanting mourners attended the funerals of four soldiers killed in early fighting.

Suicide bomber kills Shia pilgrims

At least 40 people were killed and 60 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself in a crowd of Shia pilgrims south of Baghdad yesterday, raising fears of further bloodshed before the climax of an important holy festival at Karbala.

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