Kurdish rebels killed at least 24 soldiers yesterday in simultaneous attacks in southeast Turkey, marking one of the deadliest days for the army in its 27-year battle against the separatists.

Turkey hit back with cross-border air strikes on rebel bases and sent troops into neighbouring Iraq as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a foreign trip and called an emergency meeting of top security officials.

The attacks by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels on the Turkish troops occurred in eight locations in Cukurca and Yuksekova in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border in the early hours yesterday, local security sources said.

“According to the latest confirmed information from Cukurca, the conflict region, 24 of our soldiers fell martyr and 18 of them were wounded,” Mr Erdogan said in televised remarks.

“Currently, large-scale operations including hot pursuit (of rebels in Iraq) go on in accordance with international law,” said Mr Erdogan, who cancelled an official visit to Kazakhstan in order to tackle the crisis.

The toll – earlier put at 26 by health officials in Turkey’s southeast – is the heaviest for the army since 1993, when the PKK killed 33 unarmed soldiers in Bingol province, in southeast Turkey.

The Kurdish separatist group threatened Turkey with worse if the army follows through with a ground incursion into Iraq’s autonomous north.

“The Turkish army will take a bigger hit if they try to carry out any military operation outside of the Turkish border,” rebel spokesman Ahmed Denis said.

PKK said in a statement yesterday that it launched the attacks in Hakkari in retaliation for earlier Turkish air strikes against its bases in northern Iraq and the arrest of hundreds of Kurdish politicians around Turkey, Kurdish news agency Firatnews said.

Five rebels were killed in the latest attacks in Hakkari, PKK said.