Turkey has 140,000 troops on Iraq border: Iraq

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Turkish army has 140,000 soldiers along its border with northern Iraq as part of a "great mobilization", Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Monday.

Turkey's armed forces have urged its government to allow an incursion into neighboring, mainly Kurdish, northern Iraq to crush up to 4,000 Turkish Kurdish militants who use the region as a base to attack security and civilian targets inside Turkey.

Rumors of a possible Turkish incursion have rattled financial markets and have drawn warnings from the United States, Ankara's NATO ally, to stay out of Iraq.

"There is a great mobilization on Iraq's northern international border that the security services and intelligence (agencies) estimate at more than 140,000 military personnel with all sorts of equipment," Zebari told a news conference.

Asked to confirm the number, Zebari, who is himself a Kurd, said it was 140,000.

While Turkey has not said how many troops had been sent to the border, it had been believed to be in the tens of thousands.

Tensions have soared along the mountainous border region following an upsurge in attacks across Turkey that Ankara has blamed on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.

IRAQ WANTS DIALOGUE

Zebari said Iraq wanted dialogue to resolve the issue.

"The government's stance on this is clear. We are against any interference or breach of Iraqi sovereignty from neighboring states," Zebari said.

"We understand Turkey's legitimate fears over the activities of the Workers Party and view this issue as negotiable. There is a joint Iraqi, American and Turkish security committee and it is the appropriate body to solve all the issues and problems between the two countries. We are ready to host the activities of this committee in Baghdad."

Turkey's military is known to sometimes shell PKK targets inside Iraq, as well as stage small raids across the border.

Washington, while classing the PKK as a terrorist group, fears any major operation by Turkey in northern Iraq could anger Iraqi Kurdish allies and stoke wider conflict in a relatively peaceful region of the war-torn country.

Iraq has previously said its security forces were badly stretched tackling unrelenting violence elsewhere, and did not have spare troops to send to the border region.

Turkey's centre-right government is under mounting public pressure to take tough action as July 22 parliamentary elections loom. Nationalist parties are expected to do well in the polls.

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.