ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey’s military killed six members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in air strikes in northern Iraq on Thursday, the army said in a statement.

Turkish warplanes hit the Avasin-Basyan region in northern Iraq, killing PKK militants believed to be in preparation of an attack, the military said.

The PKK, which has carried out a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, has camps in the mountains of northern Iraq, near the Turkish border. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union.

A ceasefire between the Turkish state and the PKK broke down in July 2015 and the southeast subsequently saw some of the worst violence since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984.