"It will be a one-day visit and all matters of bilateral interest will be covered," the spokesman, Mehmet Akif Beki, told AFP.

Maliki was scheduled to visit Ankara on October 16, but his visit was postponed when a sandstorm in Baghdad prevented his plane from taking off.

High on the agenda of the talks will be the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed separatist group that uses bases in the mountains of northern Iraq as a springboard for cross-border attacks in Turkey.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari is expected to accompany Maliki on his one-day visit, Turkish diplomatic sources said.

Ankara has threatened cross-border operations into northern Iraq if Washington and Baghdad fail to act against the PKK, which stepped up violence in Turkey this year before calling a unilateral ceasefire on October 1.

Ankara says the rebels enjoy unrestricted movement in Kurdish-run northern Iraq and are easily able to obtain weapons and explosives there.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, took up arms for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984.