The attack on the base was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), classed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies, according to private Turkish television station NTV.

A retaliatory military operation is underway in the area, the authorities said.

Attacks on Turkish military bases in northern Iraq in December and January killed 17 soldiers.

Turkey has over the past 25 years established a series of bases in northern Iraq from where it regularly carries out raids on positions of the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.