"Talabani wants to please the Turkish generals, and we have lost all hope of seeing him play a positive role in a solution to the Kurdish problem," senior Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) official Murad Qiralian told reporters.

"No one can eject us from our mountain stronghold here, and recent battles are proof of this," he said. "We recommend rapprochement between Kurds instead of submitting to pressure exerted by neighbouring countries."

On Wednesday, the prime minister of Iraq's Kurdish regional government backed Talabani's call for the PKK rebels to lay down their guns.

Nechirvan Barzani told reporters in the regional capital of Arbil that it was "not reasonable for a group to carry out attacks against a state and then return to our region."

On March 23, Talabani, himself a Kurd, said during a trip to Baghdad by Gul that the PKK "must become involved in political and parliamentary life instead of resorting to weapons, since using guns does wrong to Kurds and Iraqis ...

"The PKK has two choices: lay down its guns or leave Iraq," Talabani said at a joint news conference with Gul.

Hundreds of PKK militants are holed up in mountainous northern Iraq, which they use as a springboard to attack Turkey. The Turkish air force launches regular raids against their bases.

"What is strange, to say the least, is that Ankara arms 90,000 Kurdish mercenaries and at the same time wants to disarm us," Qiralian said of anti-PKK groups. "We will never accept talks if preconditional on us disarming."

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