*ANKARA: Turkey will strike Kurdish militant camps in the mountains ofnorthern Iraq in Qandil, Sinjar and Makhmur if the Iraqi central governmentdoes not clear the area of militants, President Tayyip Erdogan said onThursday.*

Speaking in an interview with broadcaster CNN Turk, Erdogan said Turkey maystrike Qandil “at any moment one evening.”

Turkey regularly carries out cross-border operations against the outlawedKurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, where the group is based inthe Qandil mountains. Ankara has also threatened to launch militaryoperations in northern Iraq´s Sinjar region.