ANKARA - Turkey on Tuesday warned its NATO ally the United States against repeating violations of Turkish airspace at the border with Iraq, threatening unspecified action.
The warning followed violations by two US F-16 warplanes on May 24, which some Turkish media described as a deliberate attempt at intimidation as Ankara discusses whether it undertake a military strike at PKK bases in northern Iraq.
"We warned them not to repeat this... If this happens again... if this takes a different dimension, what we will do is obvious," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview with the NTV news channel.
He would not specify what action Turkey might take.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the incident involved an "unintended violation of Turkish airspace" and was under investigation.
"It's something that, as soon as we found out about it, we did discuss it with both the Turkish defense ministry and foreign ministry," he told reporters.
'We are very respectful of Turkish sovereignty and of Turkish airspace, and through our investigation, we're going to make sure that we take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again," he said.
Despite the US assurances, the foreign ministry handed an official protest to a US diplomat earlier Tuesday.
The general staff said the two US jets remained in Turkish airspace over the border province of Hakkari for four minutes.
Washington is opposed to a Turkish cross-border operation into Kurdish-run northern Iraq, fearing it may destabilise a relatively calm region in the conflict-torn country and strain already tense relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds.
Ankara says its patience has run out over the safe haven thousands of terrorists from the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) enjoy in the region, despite the fact that the United States, like Turkey, lists the group as a terrorist organisation.
The issue has poisoned ties between the two NATO allies.
Ankara says the PKK obtains weapons and explosives in northern Iraq for attacks on Turkish targets across the border, and charges that the Iraqi Kurds tolerate -- and even assist -- the rebels.
Public pressure on Erdogan's government to step up the fight against the PKK mounted after a suicide bomber believed to be a PKK member blew himself up at a busy shopping centre in downtown Ankara last week, killing six and wounding 121.
Erdogan renewed a call on the United States and Iraq to act against the terrorists.
"We expect the United States and Iraq to destroy their bases in northern Iraq," he told NTV, adding that the militants "should be either handed over (to Turkey) or expelled elsewhere."
Erdogan said after the Ankara bombing that his government would secure parliamentary authorisation if the army sought to conduct a cross-border operation.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said later the government had no immediate plans for an incursion, saying that "timing is important" to obtain results.
The PKK has fought for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
05/29/2007 21:34 GMT