Barzani, who heads Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, will be making his first visit to Ankara as regional president, for talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"He will be meeting all the senior leadership of the Turkish government," Karim Zibari, a spokesman for Barzani told AFP. He gave no details on the nature of the discussions which are due to start on Thursday.

"The Turkish deputy foreign minister was here (in Kurdish regional capital Arbil) in April, and he extended an invitation for an official visit to President Barzani from the Turkish government."

Barzani's last visited Turkey in April 2004, when he held the rotating presidency of the now defunct Iraqi Governing Council.

Wednesday's trip comes after the separatists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who are based in Iraqi Kurdistan, fired rockets at a Turkish naval base on Monday killing six soldiers and wounded seven others.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms in 1984 for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.