(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-29 18:16

ANKARA/BAGHDAD - Some Turkish troops have returned to bases in Turkey after completing their mission in northern Iraq, but no full withdrawal has begun, a senior Turkish military source said on Friday.

Turkish soldiers prepare for a patrol on a road near the Turkey-Iraq border in the mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Sirnak on February 28. [Agencies]

Turkey sent thousands of troops into remote, mountainous northern Iraq on February 21 to crush rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who have been using the region as a base from which to stage attacks on Turkish territory.

"Inside Iraq there are still Turkish soldiers, and at the moment there is no complete withdrawal," the source told Reuters.

A US official in Baghdad told Reuters: "We are seeing a limited portion of the troops that had entered Iraq moving back toward Turkey. (It's) too early to call this a withdrawal."

A spokesman for Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security forces quoted Iraqi border guards as saying there had been no attacks by Turkish forces overnight and that troops were withdrawing.

Earlier the Turkish private broadcaster NTV said in an unsourced report that Turkey's land offensive had ended.

Turkey's political and military leaders have said the operation will continue for as long as necessary but have come under pressure from the United States, their NATO ally, to keep the campaign as short and carefully targeted as possible.

On Thursday, US President George W. Bush urged Turkey to end the land offensive swiftly.

Washington, like Ankara, brands the PKK a terrorist organization, and has been supplying intelligence to the Turkish military on the PKK in Iraq. But it fears that a prolonged campaign could stoke regional instability.

Turkey's military says it has killed 237 rebels in the eight-day ground offensive and suffered the loss of 24 soldiers. The PKK claims to have killed more than 100 Turkish troops but has not given a figure for rebel casualties.