Turkey has threatened to attack Iraq's Qandil region, where outlawed Kurdish rebels maintain their headquarters.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters Monday that militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, frequently carry out attacks against Turkey from bases in the Qandil mountains and elsewhere in Iraq.

Bozdag said "everyone knows that Qandil is a center for terror. Turkey could enter Qandil, everything is possible at any time."

Turkey has in the past carried out cross-border ground operations into northern Iraq to chase PKK militants, and it conducts frequent air raids on suspected militant camps there.

The PKK launched a Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey in 1984 that has led to tens of thousands of deaths.

The group is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its allies.