“We have some military elements in northern Iraq to serve a specific purpose, but it would not be right for me to explain the reason for their presence,” General Hilmi Ozkok told reporters at a reception late Friday, August 30, 2002 the Anatolia news agency reported. He gave no further details, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Turkey has long been reported to have troops in northern Iraq, where it has carried out frequent operations against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels waging a 15-year armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey's southeast.

But Turkish officials had never previously confirmed the reports.

Northern Iraq has been under the control of two rival Kurdish factions since the 1991 Gulf War when the region was wrenched from Baghdad's control and placed under the protection of a Western-enforced no-fly zone.

The leader of one of the factions, Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said in comments carried by Anatolia on Saturday, August 31 that the Turkish army had recently reinforced its presence in the mountainous region.

“In the area around Bamerni, there are around two dozen Turkish tanks, troops and helicopters that are from time to time making sorties,” Barzani said.

“The Turkish military presence in the area has been reinforced recently,” he added, a day after his movement said it had agreed with Turkey to restore traditionally friendly relations, the AFP added.

The two sides recently engaged in a war of words over media reports that the KDP was eyeing independence for its region if the United States were to launch a military operation to topple the Iraqi regime. Turkey, which has its own Kurdish minority, is against such a development.

“These past years, we have been united to fight against the terrorist PKK organization,” Barzani added, “but our relations have recently deteriorated,” AFP said.

Turkey keeps a cautious eye on the Kurds of northern Iraq, regularly warning against any move to establish an independent state there for fear it might rekindle violence among its own large Kurdish community.

The fear of a Kurdish state emerging in northern Iraq is one of the main reasons behind Turkey's stiff opposition to any U.S. military action to topple President Saddam Hussein.

Turkey, a key U.S. ally in NATO, also fears that a war in Iraq would have dire consequences for its crisis-hit economy at a time when it is implementing structural reforms with a 16-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the AFP added.

Press reports Friday said the Turkish Foreign Ministry again warned the KDP to “forget” about its plans for an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, something Turkey fears will fan the flames of secession among its own Kurds.

“Forget your Kurdish state and a federal system in Iraq,” a Turkish diplomat Turkekul Kurttekin was quoted as saying to KDP international affairs officer Hoshyar Zabari in the Hurriyet newspaper.

Another Kurdish leader, Jelal Talabani, whose rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is the other faction controlling part of northern Iraq, said he had received Washington's assurance Turkey would not participate in a U.S. intervention in the area, the Turkish press reported.

Talabani added that “neither he, nor anyone needed the United States” because 100,000 men from Iraq's opposition groups were ready to rise up against Saddam Hussein, according to the Milliyet newspaper.

The PUK and the rival KDP control the Western-protected enclave in northern Iraq, which has been off-limits to the Baghdad government since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

Meanwhile, during Ministry of Foreign Affairs undersecretary Ugur Ziyal's visit to the United States, American officials said that they did not make any request from Turkey about the issue of Iraq, Turkish Press daily news reported.

Turkish diplomatic sources told the A.A correspondent on Friday, August 30 that during his contacts in the United States, Ziyal explained drawbacks of a possible military operation against Iraq.

Turkish officials said that they got the impression that a possible operation could be launched following the Congress elections in November the earliest.

Turkish delegation also expressed Turkey's uneasiness about recent negative attitude of Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Massoud Barzani against Turkey, Turkish Press added.

Meanwhile, Turkish officials denied the allegation put forward by Patriotic Union for Iraqi Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani who said, “the United States assured Iraqi Kurds that Turkey would not intervene in Iraq in a possible military operation.”

An official said, “the United States did not say Turkey that it should not enter Iraq. Actually, Turkey did not say that it would enter Iraq.”

On the other hand, Ziyal said on Wednesday, August 28 that a unilateral U.S. decision to attack Iraq would take the world closer to the “laws of the jungle.”

“If we do not have legitimacy in international relations, we would be on the way to going back to the laws of the jungle, and this is something that I don't think American society could accept,” he told the Washington Institute, a think-tank which specializes in Middle East politics, Turkish Daily News reported.