Turkey may fight Kurds in northern Iraq

SIRNAK, Turkey — Turkey's ruling party decided Tuesday to seek parliamentary approval for an offensive against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, a move that could open a new front in the Iraq war and disrupt one of that nation's few relatively peaceful areas.

The government did not say it had decided to launch such an attack, which could jeopardize Turkey's ties with the United States. The U.S. warned against sending troops across the border and urged Turkey to work with Iraq's government to quell the Turkish Kurd guerrillas.

"If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it, and I'm not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We have counseled, both in public and private, for many, many months, the idea that it is important to work cooperatively to resolve this issue."

In the past, Turkish troops have made small-scale "hot pursuit" raids into Iraq that officials say do not require Parliament's approval. The last major incursion against the militant separatists operating out of Iraq's Kurdish region was in 1997.

There are widespread fears that a Turkish offensive would destabilize Iraq's Kurdish area, which has largely escaped the violence and political turmoil afflicting regions dominated by Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs.

Iraqi Kurds, who run a virtual mini-state in Iraq's north, have vowed to defend their borders. A spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish regional government, Jamal Abdullah, urged Turkey on Tuesday to drop the idea of a military attack.

"We call upon the Turkish government to exercise self-restraint and not to turn the region into an unstable one," he said. "Such attacks will threaten the stability not only in Iraq but the whole region."

Turkey's decision to seek a parliamentary go-ahead was made during a three-hour meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and officials from his governing Justice and Development Party, said a leading member of the party who was at the meeting.

The party wanted the measure to pass "as soon as possible" and would try to present it to Parliament on Wednesday, the lawmaker said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. He insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Earlier Tuesday, the government said it had begun preparations for a military operation into Iraq in pursuit of the rebels after a series of deadly attacks on soldiers in recent days outraged Turks.