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MOUNT QANDIL, October 14, 2008 (AFP) - The military commander of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has accused Ankara of seeking conflict with Iraqi Kurds through its charges that they are sheltering rebel fighters in their autonomous region.

"Turkey wants to drag the Kurdistan region into war by accusing Iraqi Kurds of harbouring us," Murat Karayilan told AFP in an interview in his remote mountain hideout in northern Iraq.

His comments came as a Turkish delegation prepared to meet the president of the Iraqi Kurdish region, Massud Barzani, in Baghdad to discuss Ankara's grievances.

"Their main objective is to weaken the Iraqi Kurds' position in their disputes with Baghdad," said Karayilan, who heads the PKK's military wing in its quarter-century-old insurgency against Turkish rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

"Turkey's bombing of our camps in the mountains is aimed at stirring up the Kurdistan region and at weaving plots on the Kirkuk issue," he said.

The Iraqi Kurds have long demanded the incorporation of the oil city of Kirkuk in their northern autonomous region, but Ankara has opposed their claims fearing that the province's rich revenues will give a boost to Kurdish nationalist ambitions.

Turkey has championed the interests of the province's Turkmen minority, who like the Arab settlers poured in by Saddam Hussein's regime are strongly opposed to any change in the status quo.

Turkish warplanes have been bombing Kurdish rebel hideouts across the border in northern Iraq since PKK militants killed 17 soldiers in an attack against a Turkish border outpost on October 3.

Turkish military and civilian leaders have held a series of talks on tougher action against the rebels after parliament renewed authorisation for a possible ground incursion into northern Iraq.

Karayilan said that his rebel group remained open to dialogue with the Turkish authorities on its demands for self-rule in the southeast but that it retained the right to defend itself.

"We hope to resolve issues through dialogue, but Turkey does not listen to us and we have the right to attack them to defend ourselves from their vicious attacks," he said.

"Turkey's attacks have pushed us to respond, which is within the framework of our legitimate self-defence."

The PKK commander insisted that Ankara's charges that his fighters were launching attacks against its troops from rear-bases inside Iraq were untrue. He said they were all being conducted from inside Turkey.

"Our military's deep penetration into Turkish territory comes in response to their attacks on our strongholds," Karayilan said.

"It is clear to Turkey and everyone that we are present in Turkish Kurdistan and not in Iraqi Kurdistan."

Five Turkish soldiers were wounded on Tuesday in a PKK attack on a convoy in Tunceli province deep inside Turkish territory.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States. More than 37,000 people have died since it took up arms against Turkish troops in 1984.

The group's leader Abdullah Ocalan has been in Turkish custody since 1999.

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