DUBAI, October 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani reiterated on Friday October 18, opposition to a plan being mulled by Washington to install an American governor in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

"It is the genuine Iraqi opposition forces that must form an interim government and organize elections in which the Iraqi people would choose their representatives," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Talabani as telling the Dubai-based Saudi-owned MBC satellite television.

"We do not support any action that does not give the Iraqi people the full choice (to decide how they should be governed), and we will not support an invasion that imposes on us a government from outside, even if it is democratic," he stressed.

Talabani's PUK shares control of the U.S.-protected Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, which has been off limits to the Baghdad government since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani.

The PUK chief underlined, however, that only "international intervention such as happened in East Timor, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia" could resolve the Iraq crisis.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed on October 11 that Washington was considering installing a military occupation government in Baghdad, one of several contingency plans being worked on as U.S. officials prepare for possible military action to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The proposed government would be along the lines of those imposed in post-World War II Germany and Japan.

The New York Times reported earlier the same day that Washington had a plan for the occupation of Iraq that calls for a U.S.-led military government and war-crime trials for Iraqi leaders.

The plan includes a transition to an elected civilian government in Iraq that could take months or years, it reported, citing unnamed senior administration officials.

The initial role of Iraqi opposition forces in a post-Saddam government would be scaled back, the paper said.

The plan would put an American military commander in charge of Iraq -- perhaps General Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf -- for a year or more while the United States and its allies searched for and destroyed Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, according to the Times.

Talabani also said he had "guarantees" from the United States that it would "prevent any regional intervention in Iraq" in the event of a U.S. attack.

Turkey has threatened military action to prevent any moves toward independence by Iraq's Kurds following a U.S. strike, fearing such moves would whet separatist appetites among its own Kurdish community.

Iran, another neighbor of Iraq with a sizeable Kurdish minority, said on Thursday October 17, it agreed with Ankara on the need to prevent Iraqi Kurds becoming independent.