Turkish Foreign Minister Mr Abdullah Gul has claimed US troops and Iraqi Kurdish forces had clashed at the weekend with Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
Ankara, which last Friday withdrew an offer to send troops to help the United States secure Iraq, has been pressing US forces there to crack down on separatist fighters from Turkey's banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"It is true that clashes took place yesterday. Not only US forces but also Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters were involved in engaging the PKK. Some US helicopters were also deployed [against the PKK]," Mr Gul said.
He declined to say whether the operation took place as part of an understanding between Turkey and the United States that US forces would attempt to dislodge and disarm the estimated 5,000 PKK fighters hiding in northern Iraq.
Turkey's Sabahdaily said one Kurdish "peshmerga" was killed and a further 10 Iraqi Kurds wounded in the clash, which it said took place near the Turkey-Iraq border.
Last Friday, Turkey reversed an earlier decision to sendtroops to Iraq in line with a request from Washington because of unexpectedly strong opposition from Baghdad's US-appointed Governing Council, especially its Kurdish members.
Washington had hoped a Turkish contingent of around 10,000troops would relieve pressure on its own forces, but Iraqisfeared Ankara would pursue its own political agenda, especiallyin largely Kurdish northern Iraq where the PKK has bases.
Turkey already keeps a few thousand soldiers in northernIraq to stop the PKK rebels infiltrating southeast Turkey, scene of a bloody Kurdish insurgency during the 1980s and 1990s inwhich more than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, were killed.