(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-22 09:41

"Attacks from Iraqi territory need to be dealt with swiftly by the Iraqi government and Kurdish Regional authorities," White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement. "The United States, Turkey and Iraq will continue to stand together to defeat the PKK terrorists."

Turkey's military general staff said 32 rebels were killed in continuing clashes in the southeast. Turkey shelled areas inside Iraq on Sunday morning but no casualties were reported.

Abdul Rahman Jaderji, a senior official in the PKK in northern Iraq, said the rebels had killed 40 soldiers. The number could not be independently verified.

The pro-PKK Firat news agency, which is based in western Europe, said eight soldiers had also been taken hostage. Gonul denied any soldiers had been kidnapped.

"We cannot give details on how many we have captured, all I can say is that they are not in Iraq. They are in Turkey," a senior PKK source told Reuters.

In a separate incident on Sunday, a landmine killed a civilian and wounded at least 13 more in a minibus travelling in a wedding convoy near to where the soldiers were killed.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984. The United States, Turkey and European Union class the PKK as a terrorist organisation.

Some 3,000 PKK rebels, including its leaders, are believed to be based in camps in the mountainous region of northern Iraq.

Iraq's government said it was taking important steps to end what it called the "terrorist actions" of the Kurdish rebels.

But Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said his autonomous region would defend itself if Turkish troops invaded.

"We are not going to be caught up in the PKK and Turkish war, but if the Kurdistan region is targeted, then we are going to defend our citizens," Barzani told reporters after meeting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is also a Kurd.

Talabani called on the PKK to cease fighting and to turn itself into a political organisation. "If they insist on continuing to fight they must leave Iraqi Kurdistan," he said.

With the death toll among Turkish security forces around 40 for the past month alone, Erdogan's government is under heavy domestic pressure to pursue the PKK into northern Iraq.

Many Turkish cities staged anti-PKK rallies on Sunday.

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