Turkey has often expressed frustration over US reluctance to employ military means against rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), though both Ankara and Washington consider the PKK (now also known as KONGRA-GEL) a terrorist group since October 2003 when they agreed on an action plan including military measures against it.

About 5,000 armed PKK militants, held responsible by Ankara for a 15-year civil war that claimed more than 30,000 lives in southeast Turkey, are believed to have found refuge in the mountains of neighboring northern Iraq in 1999 when the group declared a unilateral truce. Part of them reportedly infiltrated Turkey recently to engage in renewed violence, after the PKK called off the ceasefire on June 1st 2004.

"We agreed on intelligence-sharing mechanisms" Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Al Bayati told reporters after the three-way talks in the Turkish capital. "We discussed military measures but... we are now at a stage of trying to secure the [Iraqi] elections that are going to take place soon," he said. "Eventually, we shall have to take military action."

Bayati said that at the moment the priority was "to have bilateral meetings between our two governments to exchange information... and to agree on future measures ". In his view, any future action against the PKK would include the US. However, General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, told reporters after meeting Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in Ankara that US troops in Iraq are now swamped with unremitting violence in other parts of the conflict-torn country. "All of us understand that our troops have a lot of different work to do there, along with the Iraqi security forces. We agree that over time we must deal with the PKK," he added.

A joint statement issued after the three-way talks said that the US welcomes Turkish-Iraqi cooperation against the rebels and "underlines its commitment to work with Turkey... in the struggle against the PKK/KONGRA-GEL cross the world". Consultations on the issue will continue.

Osman Koruturk, the chief Turkish Foreign Ministry official on Iraq, and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Laura Kennedy headed the delegations of their respective countries at the meeting.

Turkey keeps several thousand soldiers in northern Iraq. They were deployed there prior to the US-led occupation of Iraq to counter the PKK. The Turkish army has stated that the soldiers would stay in the region for as long as the guerrillas continued to take refuge there.

Since calling off the truce the PKK has been blamed for a series of deadly attacks in southeast Turkey as well as for the bombing of two hotels in Istanbul in August 2004, which left two dead and 11 injured.

In a newspaper interview in September Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Ankara's patience was running out over US reluctance to take military action against the PKK in northern Iraq. Bayati suggested that Turkey make another effort to convince the rebels to lay down their arms by offering amnesty to PKK members who have not engaged in violence.

Note: An autonomous Kurdish Government in northern Iraq would probably exclude the PKK, which has been hostile to the ruling Barazani and Talabani clans. Such a government is likely to cooperate with the US, Turkey and Iraq in the suppression of the PKK.