"This is the only place where we can make a living. We have no other choice. I have five children to feed at home," said 31-year-old Mehmet Yilmaz as he waited in a four-kilometre (2.5-mile) queue of trucks at the Habur border gate with Iraq, near the town of Silopi.

"If they close this gate, people will first go hungry and then they will join the rebels," said Yilmaz, his truck laden with cement bound for the northern Iraqi town of Zakho.

The Habur gate is a lifeline for this mainly Kurdish region, the theatre of a 23-year armed campaign for self rule by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Bitter fighting between the army and the rebels has so far claimed more than 37,000 lives. It has also kept investors away and hit farming and livestock hard as villagers fled to cities, increasing unemployment.

All the locals can do now is ferry goods across the border for meagre sums.

But now they feel their livelihood is under threat.

The Ankara government soon expected to start discussing trade sanctions against Iraq, especially the Kurdish-run, autonomous north where Turkey says PKK rebels enjoy safe haven, tolerance and even support from local leaders.

The Turkish parliament last week gave the government the go-ahead to conduct cross-border military strikes, if necessary, to clear out rebel bases in northern Iraq.

Ahmet Karabulut, 58, said he was paid 4,000 dollars (2,780 euros) for taking household appliances from Ankara to US forces in Baghdad. It is a long trip that he can make only once every two months as the threat of insurgent attacks slows him down outside relatively calm northern Iraq.

"Once I subtract my expenses, all I am left with is 1,500 dollars. I can only just get by with it," he said. "If anything happens to trade at Habur, I will set my truck on fire and go beg in front of a mosque."

Crossing the border, too, is a slow process: truckers sometimes have to wait for days to register with the Turkish authorities and must submit to a vigourous search before they can cross to the other side.

Karabulut also accused northern Iraqi customs officials of mistreating Turkish truckers, as relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds sour.

"When they see our Turkish passports, they swear at us. They see us as their enemies although we are Kurds too," he said.

A side trade, bringing back cheap diesel from northern Iraq after dropping of goods, has also dwindled as authorities begin to tighten controls.

"Before the Iraq war, a truck would come back with nearly 1,000 litres of diesel. Now they allow us only 400 litres," said 24-year-old Ercan Kalkan.

Despite the difficulties, Iraq is a lucrative market for Turkey -- one of the few countries with which Ankara has a trade suplus.

Turkish exports to Iraq were 1.7 billion dollars in the first eight months of this year and 2.5 billion dollars for 2006, according to official statistics.

Turkish imports from Iraq totalled 153 million dollars in the eights months to August, compared to 374 million dollars for the whole of 2006.

Turkish goods that cross the border, mostly to the Kurdish north, include construction materials, food, household appliances and electricity.

The Turkish media has suggested that Ankara plans to divert its main land transport routes from Habur, which leads into Kurdish Iraq, to posts on the Syrian border, thus maintaining its economic ties with the rest of Iraq.

But truckers say that would not only make their trip longer, but leave them open to attacks by insurgents.

"That would turn us into US convoys and make us targets," Kazim Kurtay, 35, said. "Either Habur stays open or we leave this country."