ANKARA, March 16: Turkish plans to intervene in northern Iraq have put a new strain on ties between Washington and Ankara, with US President George W. Bush warning that the Turkish army may confront US forces if it acts unilaterally in the Kurdish enclave, press reports said Sunday.

The tension between the two Nato allies stems from Turkish suspicions that the Iraqi Kurds, who have enjoyed de facto autonomy since the 1991 Gulf War, will move towards independence in the event of a war, and the United States will not do enough to stop them.

In a letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Bush warned that unilateral Turkish action in the region might lead to confrontation between Turkish and US troops, the Milliyet newspaper reported.

Vice President Dick Cheney conveyed a similar message to Erdogan when they had a telephone conversation Thursday, the daily said.

Implicitly confirming reports that Washington — exasperated with Turkish reluctance — was abandoning the option of opening a northern front on Iraq from Turkish soil, Erdogan said Sunday that Washington was now asking Ankara to open its airspace to the use of the US army.

“We have told them that this also requires a parliamentary approval,” he said, according to Anatolia news agency.

Any Turkish military role in northern Iraq was part of a broader US-Turkish deal of war cooperation, which the Turkish parliament hampered when it rejected the deployment of US forces in the country on March 1.

Erdogan has said that any new vote on support for US war plans will not be on his agenda until his newly-inaugurated government wins a vote of confidence in parliament, which could be held on March 23 at the earliest.

In denying support to Washington, Ankara will also forfeit six billion dollars (5.5 billion euros) of vital financial aid to shield the ailing Turkish economy from the impact of a war next door.

The Washington Post on Saturday quoted a US official as saying that they were now focusing on dissuading Turkey from sending troops to northern Iraq.

“The mission now is to discourage and deter them from going in, and to reach an understanding with them on legitimate issues of concern,” the official said.

A senior Turkish official denounced the warnings.

“This is something unprecedented and incompatible with mutual trust within an alliance,” Mehmet Dulger, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the parliament, told CNN Turk television.

In a bid to ease tensions, the US envoy to the Iraqi opposition, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Turkish diplomats are due to hold talks here early next week with Iraqi Kurdish leaders and other prominent opposition figures.

Khalilzad faced the tough task of reconciling Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, who have recently been involved in bitter exchanges.

Jalal Talabani, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Nechirvan Barzani, a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), arrived here Sunday for the meeting, which is expected to begin Tuesday.

The Iraqi Kurds say they will fight the Turkish army if it intervenes in their region, which has enjoyed protection and de facto autonomy from Baghdad — ironically — thanks to Turkey’s hosting of US warplanes enforcing a no-fly zone over it.

Turkey, which has the second biggest army in Nato, wants to deploy troops in the region to keep the Kurds under control and prevent a possible refugee influx.

Still reeling from a 15-year separatist rebellion, Ankara fears that an independent Kurdish state at its doorstep could rekindle violence among its own Kurdish population.—AFP