Kurdish fighters of the PKK should move out of Iraqi Kurdistan to prevent Turkish air strikes against them from causing civilian casualties, the region’s leadership said on Saturday.

Kurdish fighters of the PKK should move out of Iraqi Kurdistan to prevent Turkish air strikes against them from causing civilian casualties, the region's leadership said on Saturday.

"The PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) must keep the battlefield away from the Kurdistan region in order for civilians not to become victims of this war," the office of the region's president Massud Barzani said in a statement.

Turkey has carried out hundreds of raids against the Kurdish group's mountain bases on either side of the Iraqi border.

The PKK itself has admitted to only a handful of deaths in its ranks but the official Turkish news agency Anatolia on Saturday put the figure at around 260, although it gave no source.

Several civilians have been killed and wounded in the air campaign, which Ankara launched a week ago following a wave of attacks in Turkey.