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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Media in Turkey has reported that Turkish warplanes have struck suspected Kurdish rebel positions in the southeast of the country, in the first major airstrikes against the rebel group since peace talks began two years ago to end a 30-year conflict.

The website of the Hurriyet newspaper said on Tuesday that the F-16 jets hit Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets in in the village of Daglica in Hakkari province on Sunday.

The airstrikes were launched in response to the suspected PKK shelling of a military outpost there, it said.

A military statement said on Tuesday that armed forces had responded "in the strongest way" to shelling by the rebels, without saying whether airstrikes were launched.

The attack on the military post came amid accusations by Kurds that Turkey is standing idly by while Syrian Kurds are being slaughtered across the border in the besieged town of Kobani.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Urfa, near the Turkish border with Syria, said that Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, was expected to issue a statement on Wednesday that should indicate how the group would react to the attack.

"The back story is that last week the acting leader of the PKK said that effectively the two-year peace process with Turkey was over because of the Turkish military build-up along the Iraq and Syria border," said Smith.

"And it is over because the Turkish government has resorted to heavy-handed tactics in cracking down on Kurdish protesters."

Smith was referring to the protesters who took to the streets in several cities in the southeast over the past week because of frustration as what has been seen as Turkey's lack of action to stop the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group in northern Syria where Kurds are under threat.

Scores died during a police crackdown on the demonstrations.

*Agencies