Turkish helicopters pound rebel Kurds

SIRNAK, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkish Cobra helicopters pounded Kurdish rebel positions near the Iraqi border on Tuesday and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed his readiness to send troops over the frontier despite U.S. opposition.

Plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the mountains in Sirnak province after the helicopters flew over rebel positions, witnesses said. A further round of bombing occurred later in the afternoon.

A convoy of up to 40 army vehicles headed east towards the border in brilliant sunshine. Troops scoured the hillsides for landmines, a favored weapon of the guerrillas.

Three Turkish soldiers have been killed in the past 24 hours in the border area. A fourth died on Monday in Tunceli province hundreds of kilometers to the north in a landmine explosion.

Turkey has massed up to 100,000 troops, backed by tanks, artillery, warplanes and combat helicopters along the Iraqi border in preparation for a possible cross-border incursion into northern Iraq where 3,000 rebels are believed to be hiding.

"Turkey has to take military action against terrorism. Our security forces are continuing their operations without interruption," Erdogan told members of his ruling centre-right AK Party in parliament in Ankara.

"We are at the stage of making a decision and we will make the decision on our own ... We are employing all our resources to get results in the shortest time," he said.

The United States and Iraq have urged Turkey to avoid a major military incursion, fearing this would destabilize the wider region. Washington and Baghdad have shown no appetite for tackling the PKK in Iraq despite repeated appeals from Ankara.

U.S.-TURKISH EFFORTS

The White House said President George W. Bush will discuss "joint efforts to counter the PKK" when he meets Erdogan in Washington next week.

"We have a joint desire, a joint need to make sure that the PKK is eradicated, that they are stopped," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Erdogan said he would tell Bush Turkey expected "urgent, concrete steps" from the United States against the PKK. He would also seek an explanation of why PKK rebels are using U.S.-made weapons in their fight with Turkish forces.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani told Tuesday's Milliyet newspaper he wanted the PKK to lay down its weapons but he also criticized Turkey for refusing to discuss the issue directly with his autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq.

"Barzani's attitude is clear. He is sheltering a terrorist organization in that region. That is what is happening and that is against international law," Erdogan later told reporters at a reception at the presidential palace in Ankara.

President Abdullah Gul added: "Barzani has to choose one side."

Ankara insists on speaking only with the central government in Baghdad and suspects Barzani of planning an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. It fears this could stoke separatism among Turkey's own large Kurdish population.

"We are not Turkey's enemy. We extend the hand of friendship but we cannot accept persecution," Barzani told a news conference in his capital Arbil, broadcast live on Turkish TV.

"It is our natural right to defend ourselves," he added in comments dubbed into Turkish, reiterating previous statements that Iraqi Kurdish fighters would fight if Turkey invaded.

Turkey's cabinet is due to approve economic sanctions on Wednesday against groups deemed to be providing support to the PKK, a move widely viewed as targeting Barzani's administration.

The measures could include restricting border traffic and reducing electricity exports to northern Iraq.

Turkey's civil aviation authority has denied Istanbul-based charter airline Tarhan Tower permission to fly two of its three weekly flights to Arbil this week, airline officials told Reuters on Tuesday, in an apparent sign of new restrictions.

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 and the European Union, like Turkey, brand the PKK as a terrorist group.

U.S., Turkish and Iraqi officials will make fresh diplomatic efforts to avert a major military operation when they attend a conference of Iraq's neighbors in Istanbul this weekend.

(Additional reporting by Paul de Bendern and Evren Mesci in Ankara and Tabassum Zakaria and Matt Spetalnick in Washington)