Barzani and Turkey's Deputy Foreign Minister Murat Ozcelik met in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil to discuss cooperation against separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels operating rear-bases in northern Iraq, a statement from the president's office said.

"This visit came to prepare the ground for further dialogue with regard to the problems between the Kurd region and Turkey and working to solve this problem and tension," said Safin Dizayi, foreign affairs head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Turkish negotiators are expected to return to the Kurdish region at a later date, said Dizayi, whose PUK party is led by Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, without giving details.

The two sides also touched on Iraq's general situation nearly six years after the US invasion, the statement said.

Saturday's meeting came after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara on December 24 to discuss how to deal with the PKK rebels holed up in northern Iraq.

Ankara has sought close relations and economic cooperation with Baghdad but the safe haven the PKK enjoys in remote mountains of neighbouring northern Iraq has cast a shadow on bilateral ties.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.

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

The latest bombing came on January 5.