ANKARA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's Air Forces Commander General Aydogan Babaoglu denied on Wednesday some media reports that its military helicopters conducted a cross-border operation into northern Iraq, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

    "None of the aircraft of Turkish Air Forces conducted a cross-border operation, and such reports are groundless," Babaoglu was quoted as saying.

    "Turkish Air Forces do not currently have any cross-border operation plan," he added.

    Local media reported Tuesday that Turkish military helicopters struck a suspected Kurdish rebel hideout in a northern Iraqi village earlier in the day, though no one was killed in the bombing since the village was abandoned and empty.

    Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops near the border with Iraq in preparation for a cross-border operation to crush the 3,000-strong Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) rebels based in northern Iraq.

    The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast.

    More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict that has lasted more than two decades, it was reported.