The Anadolu state news agency said the "targeted" operation was staged near the Makhmur refugee camp, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has singled out as an "incubator" of terror activity.

It said Hasan Adir, also known as Salih Cizre, was "eliminated", a term Turkish media use to imply either killed or captured.

He was identified as a local leader in the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is recognised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and its Western allies.

Erdogan said another Makhmur PKK leader, Selman Bozkir, was killed in another special operation last weekend.

Set up by the United Nations at the end of the 1990s to host Turkish Kurds, the camp last weekend suffered a Turkish drone strike that left three civilians dead, a Kurdish official from the camp told AFP.

Turkey regularly conducts cross-border operations and air raids on PKK rear bases in Iraq -- moves that have strained ties between the two neighbours.

Ankara launched its latest offensive in April.

The PKK has waged a rebellion in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey since 1984 that has claimed more than 40,000 lives, and uses bases in Iraq to train fighters and launch attacks on Turkey.