The Turkish government is to seek parliamentary approval for a military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq, a party official said.
The government did not say yesterday that it had decided to launch such an operation, which could jeopardise Turkey's ties with the United States and disrupt one of the few relatively peaceful areas of Iraq.
In the past, Turkey has carried out smaller-scale operations in Iraq that officials say do not require parliamentary approval. Its last major incursion was in 1997.
There are widespread fears - in Baghdad, and among its American and other allies - that a Turkish incursion could destabilise an area of Iraq that has largely escaped the violence and political turmoil afflicting areas dominated by Shia and Sunni Arabs in the centre and south of the country. Iraqi Kurds, who run a virtual mini-state in the north, have vowed to defend their borders.
The US State Department warned against any unilateral move.
The Iraqi Kurdish regional government's spokesman, Jamal Abdullah, pleaded with Turkey to show restraint.
"We call upon the Turkish government to exercise self-restraint and not to turn the region into an unstable one," he said after yesterday's statement. "Such attacks will threaten the stability not only in Iraq but the whole region."
Turkey's decision to seek a parliamentary go-ahead was taken during a three-hour meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and officials from his ruling Justice and Development Party, said a leading member of the party who was at the meeting.
Earlier, the government said it had begun preparations for a military operation into Iraq in pursuit of the rebels, after deadly attacks on soldiers in recent days that outraged the Turkish public.
Turkey has previously said it would prefer that the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in northern Iraq crack down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
In the last 10 days, more than two dozen people - soldiers and civilians - were killed in southeastern Turkey in attacks by PKK rebels.
The group, labelled terrorist by Washington and the European Union, has fought Turkish forces since 1984. Tens of thousands of rebels, soldiers and civilians have died.