The leader of Turkish largest opposition party has said he would support the government if it chose to launch a cross-border offensive against Turkish Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.

 

Deniz Baykal, leader of the Republican People's Party, also called on the government to urgently debate taking military action against northern Iraq.

"We're ready to back the government on this issue," Baykal told his supporters on Sunday.

 

"We're planning to invite parliament to debate this."

Baykal's promise to support the government came just days after Turkey's prime minister called for the US to act against separatist Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq.

 

 

Turkey has repeatedly said that it will not tolerate the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. Military officers have spoken of the possibility of sending in troops to prevent this from happening.

 

 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, severely criticized the US this week for not keeping its promises to take action against Kurdish guerrillas holed up in the northern Iraqi mountains.

 

The US has been cooperating with Turkey against guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, but Turkish officials increasingly have found the level of cooperation unsatisfactory.

 

"We want solid results," Erdogan said earlier this week during an interview with private NTV television.

 

Asked about past threats of a possible invasion, Erdogan said, "When the time comes, Turkey will do whatever is necessary against those threatening our country with terror".

 

In the last 20 years, more than 37,000 people in Turkey have died in the fighting between Kurdish groups fighting for independence and the Turkish military.

 

Turkey has also warned that rival ethnic groups in the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk must share power, amid growing fears that Iraq's Kurds plan to seize control of Kirkuk as part of a push for an independent Kurdish state there.