Turkey calls for Iraq to hand over all PKK rebels

ANKARA, Oct 26 (Reuters) Turkey wants Iraq to hand over all members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) based in northern Iraq, Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said today.

Cicek, speaking in a televised interview as Iraqi and US officials met Turkish officials in Ankara in a bid to stop Turkey launching an incursion into northern Iraq to tackle the militants, also said Turkish air forces had hit targets in northern Iraq but there had been no full land incursion.

''Everyone (PKK members in northern Iraq) there is guilty.

They are criminals at least for being a member of a terrorist organisation,'' Cicek said. ''We want all of them to be handed over,'' he said, adding that Ankara had given Iraq a list of PKK militants.

The central government in Iraq has little clout in the mainly Kurdish autonomous north of Iraq, and the interior chief of the autonomous region was blocked from attending the talks by Ankara.

REUTERS GT RK2238