Turkey "neutralizes" PKK group in northern Iraq

ANKARA (Reuters) - The Turkish military said on Tuesday it had opened fire on 21 Kurdish PKK fighters trying to enter Turkey from northern Iraq.

The General Staff, in a statement on its Internet site, said its forces opened fire on the guerrillas late on Monday 3 km (2 miles) inside northern Iraq and most of them had been "neutralized".

It gave no further details, but "neutralized" generally means killed.

A spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) denied any of its men had been killed. "Often, the Turkish exaggerate in these cases and hide their losses," Ahmed Danis said.

The PKK uses northern Iraq as a base to stage attacks on Turkish territory. Turkey blames the PKK, which is fighting for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey, for the deaths of 40,000 people.

Turkey, as well as the European Union and the United States, considers the group a terrorist organization.

(Additional reporting by Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil)

(Writing by Paul de Bendern)