ANKARA, July 8: Continued tensions between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen in Iraq's northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk could endanger Turkey's national security, Turkey's powerful military General Staff said on Thursday.

"We are concerned that the situation in Kirkuk could bring civil war to Iraq. This could threaten our own security," General Ilker Basbug told a monthly news conference.

"We expect Iraq's transitional government to prevent any change in the demographic makeup of Kirkuk," he added. Ethnic tensions have risen in Kirkuk, a city of 750,000 people, as political groups jostle for advantage following the handover of power in Iraq from US occupying forces to the interim government in Baghdad.

Turkey believes the Kurds are trying to wrest control of Kirkuk and its energy resources as part of a drive for greater autonomy and even independence. Ankara fears this would rekindle separatism among the Kurds of southeastern Turkey.

Iraq's Kurds deny seeking independence, but they regard Kirkuk as a Kurdish city and want to reverse Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" policy which forced Kurds from their homes, replacing them with mostly Shia Muslim Arabs.

Turkmen, with close linguistic and ethnic ties to Turkey, insist they are the original inhabitants of Kirkuk. Basbug reaffirmed Turkey's commitment to Iraq's territorial integrity and political stability.

Turkey still keeps a few thousand troops in northern Iraq to pursue guerrillas belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which waged a bloody campaign in the 1980s and 1990s for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.

Basbug said there could be no question of Turkey pulling these troops out of Iraq while PKK fighters remained there. "The Turkish armed forces will continue the struggle against the PKK with all decisiveness," Basbug said.

Basbug repeated Ankara's criticism of US occupying forces in Iraq, saying they had failed to honour promises to crack down on the PKK fighters. Turkish leaders pressed US President George W. Bush directly on this issue when he visited Ankara late last month.

But the United States has made clear it has more pressing concerns in Iraq than the PKK at the present time. Ankara blames the PKK for years of conflict in southeast Turkey which claimed more than 30,000 lives.

The violence largely subsided after the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, but fighting has increased since the rebels ended a six-year unilateral ceasefire on June 1. Both the United States and the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, regard the PKK as a terrorist organiztion. -Reuters