The warning comes amid rising tensions between Iraqi Kurds and Iran and Turkey, both of which have Kurdish minorities and have been battling separatist militants from the PKK and its offshoots.

"They (PKK) are in our land. We want them to respect the law and not use our territory to stage attacks" against Iran or Turkey, said Imad Ahmed, deputy prime minister of northern Kurdistan's Sulaimaniyah province.

"We want them to leave our country but in peace, not in war. If they want to stay they have to use politics not weapons."

Ahmed, a member of President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said the region hoped to have good relations with neighbouring Turkey and Iran.

"We do not want any problems with Iran or Turkey and I condemn any attacks on the two from Iraqi territory," Ahmed told AFP in an interview.

On Wednesday the PKK, an armed separatist group which is fighting for an independent Kurdish homeland in the region, warned Ankara of a "mass war" if its forces entered Iraqi territory to fight PKK guerillas.

"We do not want war, but we will launch a mass war against Turkey if its forces enter Iraqi territory," PKK executive body chief Murad Karialan said.

The Turkish army reserves the right to venture into Iraq to pursue PKK rebels based there, but has denied reports that such operations are already under way.

Turkey has amassed thousands of troops along the border with Iraq for what officials describe as a large-scale effort to prevent increasing infiltrations by PKK rebels based in mountainous hideouts in northern Iraq.

Ankara has long urged Washington and Baghdad to root out the PKK from northern Iraq, but it has been told that violence in other parts of the conflict-torn country is their priority.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, has been fighting Ankara since 1984 when it took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey.

On Sunday, Baghdad accused Iranian forces of entering five kilometers (three miles) into Iraq and shelling PKK positions.

For around a year, Iran, which has its own Kurdish minority, has been battling infiltrations by Pejak, a Kurdish group linked to the PKK.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK launched its separatist campaign in 1984.

Meanwhile, Ahmed also condemned the alleged military incursions by Iranian forces into Iraqi territory to shell PKK positions. Tehran would neither confirm nor deny such actions.

"Their forces attacked some Iraqi vans, but we hope this ends soon and we would like to have good relations with our neighbors," he said.

On Sunday Iraq said Iranian forces were targeting positions nearly 200 kilometers (115 miles) north of Sulaimaniyah province held by the PKK in Iraqi territory.

Iran is bound by treaty with Turkey to fight the outlawed PKK, which has waged a 15-year insurgency against Ankara.

In return, Turkey has pledged to fight the Iranian armed opposition group, the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen.

Turkey says some 5,000 armed PKK militants have found refuge in northern Iraq since 1999, when the group declared a unilateral ceasefire after the capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The truce was called off in June 2004.

Kurds make up the majority in three adjacent areas within Iraq, Iran and Turkey.