"The talks will focus on cooperation against terrorism and secuirity measures, including intelligence sharing," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay would host the meeting, while the United States would be represented by a senior military commander based in Iraq, he said.

Iraq was sending National Security Minister Shirwan al-Waeli, at the head of a delegation of about 20 officials, an Iraqi embassy source said.

The talks would be held as part of a joint committee the three countries set up in November to enact measures to curb the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Turkish official said.

PKK militants have long taken refuge in mountainous bases in northern Iraq, using the region as a springboard for attacks on Turkish targets across the border.

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

Tuesday's meeting comes amid renewed debate in Ankara on how the conflict should be resolved.

The government is expected to consider fresh steps to win over its sizeable Kurdish community, whose cultural freedoms have been notably expanded in recent years as part of EU-sought democracy reforms.

Some analysts say the measures could be announced shortly to pre-empt a "roadmap for a democratic solution" that jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is expected to propose in August.

The PKK said last week it was extending a unilateral truce by six weeks until September 1 in anticipation of Ocalan's proposals.

Despite gestures to the Kurds, Ankara has failed to draw up a clear strategy to convince the PKK to lay down arms, ruling out dialogue with the rebels rejecting and calls to grant them amnesty.

Aided by US intelligence, Turkey has bombed PKK camps in northern Iraq since December 2007 under a parliamentary authorisation that expires in October.

Ankara had often accused the Iraqi Kurds, who run an autonomous administration in northern Iraq, of tolerating and even aiding the rebels.

But in a major policy shift last year, it said it would seek to resolve the issue through diplomacy and cooperation with Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurds.