(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-10-23 07:00

The rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party said its fighters captured the missing soldiers - a claim that would make it the largest seizure since 1995, when guerrillas grabbed eight soldiers, took them to northern Iraq and held them for two years before letting them go.

"Right now, these soldiers are hostages in the hands of our forces," a senior PKK commander, Bahoz Erdal, was quoted as telling the pro-Kurdish Firat News Agency in Belgium. "Their health condition is good. One of them was slightly injured, but was being taken care of by our medics."

The claim was sure to intensify the army's search for the soldiers.

Protesters waving the red and white Turkish flag demonstrated in cities nationwide to demand a tough response to the weekend ambush.

"Martyrs never die! The nation will never be divided!" demonstrators shouted in Ankara, the capital. "Martyr" is a term used by Turks for soldiers killed in combat.

Others chanted "Down with the PKK and USA!" Many Turks are angry at Washington over what they consider the failure of U.S. and Iraqi forces to honor pledges to crack down on the group, which is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist movement.

Iraqi Kurds allied with Turkish forces in the 1990s to fight the PKK, a rival in their northern enclave at a time when Saddam Hussein ruled the rest of Iraq. But Iraqi Kurds are now reluctant to attack their ethnic brethren from Turkey, fearing the Turks want to curb Kurdish aspirations for self-rule.

The government said it would pursue diplomacy before it sends troops across the rugged frontier.

"Our preference is diplomacy, but the military option is no doubt a method in the struggle against terrorism," Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said after touring the Middle East to explain Turkey's position.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said the PKK would make a cease-fire announcement Monday, but rebels later said they already had announced a unilateral cease-fire in June.

"We're stating clearly that if the Turkish state stops its attacks, then increased tensions will be replaced with a combat-free environment," a rebel statement said.

Turkey has rejected truces declared by the PKK, demanding that the rebels surrender or be killed. The rebels have pressed ahead with attacks on the grounds they are defending themselves against the army.

In Washington, the State Department said the United States had opened a diplomatic campaign to persuade Turkey not to invade northern Iraq. "In our view, there are better ways to deal with this issue," spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by telephone Sunday night that Turkey expected "speedy steps from the U.S." in quelling the PKK. He said Rice asked "for a few days."

McCormack did not dispute the account of the conversation but declined to comment on what Rice meant by asking for "a few days."

Erdogan did not specify what he meant by "speedy steps," but he has often urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on the PKK. Turkish leaders say it is the responsibility of those countries to do whatever is necessary to destroy guerrilla bases in northern Iraq.

Steven Cook, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted previous Turkish incursions into northern Iraq had not destroyed the PKK, which has waged an insurgency in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey that has killed some 30,000 people since 1984.

"The PKK is trying to draw the Turks into Iraq to keep them bogged down there," Cook said, saying the rebels hoped prolonged military action in Iraq would destabilize Turkey.

Egypt and Jordan cautioned Turkey on Monday against launching an offensive into Iraq, a reflection of Arab countries' fears of widening the Iraq conflict.

Arab nations traditionally oppose any foreign incursion into a fellow Arab state, and they fear a Turkish attack could fuel separatist sentiment among Iraqi Kurds and increase the danger of Iraq's breakup. But they also have ties with predominantly Muslim Turkey and oppose Kurdish separatist movements.

"I hope that both sides, Turkey and Iraq, will sit together to find a solution to the Kurdish problem," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said. In Jordan, government spokesman Nasser Judeh said: "We're concerned about Iraq's security, unity and integrity."

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