ANKARA -- Turkish troops have killed as many as 200 guerrillas from the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, during their two-day push into northern Iraq, Turkey's defense minister said Tuesday.


"According to the information we have received, about 200 PKK members have been killed so far. There are no casualties on the Turkish military side," Defense Minister Mehmet Golhan told reporters.


Turkish jets pounded Kurdish rebel camps and ground forces secured a zone 40 kilometers into north Iraq on Tuesday in the second day of the massive hunt for separatist guerrillas.


As many as 35,000 soldiers, backed by tanks and artillery, spent the Kurdish new year holiday of Nowrouz -- a traditional time of separatist unrest -- inside the "safe haven" for Iraqi Kurds, protected by a U.S.-led allied air force.


The allied force canceled its routine flights over the area for a second day, said Captain Grant Sattler, a spokesman at the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey.


"The operation is going very well," said Colonel Dogu Silahcioglu, spokesman for the General Staff, in Diyarbakir, the nerve center of Turkey's struggle with the PKK. "We've entered [Iraq] at four points and are focusing on PKK camps there."


"The aim is to cause as much destruction as possible," another military official said.


Witnesses said F-16 jets from the Second Tactical Wing, based in Diyarbakir, flew early morning sorties against PKK camps. Helicopter operations were launched from nearby Sirnak.


TRT state radio said the air force had destroyed a big PKK camp at Bote near Iran, more than 110 kilometers south of the Turkish border.


Earlier, state radio said troops had occupied the 40-kilometer-deep zone that Ankara had previously set as the limit of the action -- said by officials to be Turkey's biggest military operation ever.


In Baghdad, Iraqi media failed to report the Turkish action and the Iraqi government made no public comment.


Previous incursions by Turkish troops in pursuit of members of the outlawed PKK were denounced by Baghdad as violation of its sovereignty.


But despite the Turkish military's assessment of the assault, it was not immediately clear how effective the show of force may have been in damaging PKK operations against Turkish targets.


A source close to the Kurdish rebels in eastern Turkey's Tunceli province -- separated from the border by 350 kilometers of rugged terrain -- said the PKK had already pulled men out of its Iraqi bases and into Turkey.


The source said the rebels were used to reinforce PKK strongholds in Tunceli and neighboring Bingol provinces, where almost impenetrable terrain provides cover from the security forces.


Diplomats in Ankara said any element of surprise was clearly squandered by the gradual build-up of men and materiel near the Iraqi border, which had been underway for weeks.


In Washington, the White House tacitly endorsed the incursion after receiving assurances from Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller the operation would be limited and civilian lives would be safeguarded. (Reuters, AP)