ANKARA, July 3: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Monday the new Baghdad government is ready to revive three-way talks with Turkey and the United States to discuss measures to curb Turkish Kurd rebels based in the northern region of his country.

“We discussed the need to reactivate the trilateral discussions ... on containing the PKK terrorist activities on the border region,” Mr Zebari told reporters after talks with Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul here.

“These will be activated in the near future ... to be followed by some other measures, hopefully, in order to reinforce our joint cooperation in this area,” he said.

Ankara has long pressed the United States and Baghdad to purge northern Iraq of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — blacklisted as a terrorist group by both Ankara and Washington — whose armed militants have found refuge in the mountainous region since 1999.—AFP