ANKARA, Jan 31: Turkey warned on Monday that it could take action if Kurdish attempts to take control of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, plunge the oil-rich city into ethnic turmoil while a top US envoy sought to ease Ankara's security concerns.

In comments published in a newspaper interview, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul renewed concerns that more Kurds than those expelled under Saddam Hussein's rule had settled in Kirkuk, altering the demographic structure of the city which is also home to large numbers of Turkmens, a community of Turkish descent backed by Ankara.

"We are observing that the situation has reached dangerous proportions," Mr Gul told the English-language Turkish Daily News newspaper. "Now our fear is the possibility that these gross changes in the demography of Kirkuk could trigger an ethnic confrontation, which has not been seen so far."

"If our brothers (Turkmens) are not treated well, if they are subjected to oppression, such developments will hurt us deeply, and in a democratic society administrations cannot remain indifferent, or merely spectators, to such developments," Mr Gul said.

The minister did not say what action Turkey could take but stressed that Ankara had no territorial ambitions over Iraq and respected its borders. "Our borders are clear. We have no territorial designs. We have no territorial demands on any country. When we talk about the integrity of Iraq, we mean the internationally recognized borders of Iraq," Mr Gul said.

Ankara says that many of the Kurds who moved to Kirkuk following the US-led occupation and who voted in Sunday's elections have no bonds with the city and sees the influx as part of a Kurdish design to take control of the city and make it the capital of a future independent Kurdish state.

Many Turkish newspapers on Monday ran front-page reports quoting Kurdish leader Massud Barzani, who heads one of two Kurdish factions controlling the north, as saying that Iraqi Kurds would one day have their own independent state.

"The elections end, their mask comes off," said the daily Aksam, referring to the Kurds, while the Vatan daily headlined "Barzani challenges Turkey". -AFP