ANKARA, August 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As Turkish demonstrators protested against the killing of 12 Turkmens in Iraq on Sunday, August 24, Prime Minister Recep Tyyap Erdogan said Ankara is continuing to closely monitor the situation in northern Iraq.

Some 23 Turkish police were injured in clashes with around 100 protestors who had gathered outside the Ankara offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Anatolian news agency reported.

Television pictures showed police hitting out with batons to disperse the crowd, who responded by throwing stones as police in body armor protected themselves with plastic shields.

Anatolian also reported that many of the protesters were also injured but it was not clear how many. One group of protesters was detained.

“Kirkuk is Turkish, it will remain Turkish,” '”Damn Talabani, damn the peshmerga,” the protesters in Ankara chanted in a reference to the Kurdish fighters.

In the meanwhile, Anatolian quoted Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as condemning the incident in comments to reporters.

"Any sort of emotional behavior here...will not bring us to the point of a solution, rather it will bring trouble and make (the situation) unsolvable," Erdogan said.

But he said that Turkey is closely following events in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk following the recent violence.

"The situation is being followed closely by Ankara and Washington," he said, according to CNN-Turkey news channel.

According to Erdogan, two peshmerga fighters, reportedly members of the PUK, are being questioned in connection with the killings.

The Prime Minister said that Turkey was still waiting for the U.S. to issue a warning to the leader of the PUK, Jelal Talabani, over the actions of his faction.

"We have submitted our views on this issue to America," the Premier said.

Turkey, which wants to suppress Kurdish separatism within its own borders, has expressed concern about growing Kurdish influence in Iraq.

The PUK denied any role in the violence and blamed ''foreign elements'' and "elements of the former regime."

This comes as Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Monday that the United States should do its utmost to secure order in northern Iraq in the aftermath of violent fighting in northern Iraq.

"We are in constant contact with the United States, which provides authority in Iraq... We have reminded them (U.S. officials) that they need to do their best to establish peace there," Gul told reporters at a meeting with representatives of the Turkmen community.

"It is not possible for us to accept the recent treatment of the Turkmens," he was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Gul, meanwhile, called for vigilance to prevent a repeat of the fighting.

"According to the information we received the incidents have died down, but everyone needs to be careful," he added.

The killings in Kirkuk come at a time when Turkey, which backs the Turkmen, is weighing whether to send up to 10,000 troops to join the U.S.-led troops occupying Iraq.

Erdogan also said that Ankara would make a final decision on whether or not to deploy troops in Iraq as part of an international stability force in September, after the issue had been discussed in last week’s National Security Council meeting.

In the meanwhile, a leading Kurdish party in northern Iraq accused Turkey on Sunday of shelling a Kurdish border town following a bout of infighting between Kurds and Turkmen that left a dozen people dead.

Turkish heavy artillery fired more than 15 shells on Barwari Bala near the frontier with turkey on Saturday, said a statement by Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) read out on the party's KTV television late Sunday.