At least 35 people died in an air strike in Turkey after government jets apparently mistook smugglers for Kurdish militants, it was claimed today.
A pro-Kurdish party and local officials said Turkish jets strike militant targets regularly near the Iraqi border.
The strikes are being made in the battle against Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas, and have stepped up raids after a PKK attack in August, it was claimed.
'We have 30 corpses, all of them are burned. The state knew that these people were smuggling in the region.
'This kind of incident is unacceptable. They were hit from the air,' said Fehmi Yaman, mayor of Uludere in Sirnak province.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said in a statement 35 people had been killed, adding that party leaders were heading for the area.
'There were rumours that the PKK would cross through this region. Images were recorded of a crowd crossing last night, hence an operation was carried out,' a Turkish security official said.
'We could not have known whether these people were (PKK) group members or smugglers,' he said.
Television images showed a line of corpses covered by blankets on a barren hillside, with a crowd of people gathered around, some with their head in their hands and crying.
People loaded the corpses onto donkeys which were led down the hillside to be loaded into vehicles to be taken to hospital in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country.
Security sources said those killed were carrying canisters of diesel on mules and their bodies were found on the Iraqi side of the border.
They said those killed were from Uludere on the Turkish side of the border on what was a regular smuggling route.
The Firat news agency, which has close ties to the PKK, said that 17 people were still believed to be missing. It said those killed were aged around 17 the 20.
The PKK, regarded as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, launches attacks on Turkish forces in southeastern Turkey from hideouts inside the remote Iraqi mountains.
Turkey and Iran have often skirmished with rebels in the region and Turkish leaders vowed revenge in October with air and ground strikes after the PKK killed 24 Turkish soldiers in raids on military outposts in southeastern Turkey.
It was one of the deadliest attacks since the PKK took up arms in 1984 in a conflict in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
