"The execution of Saddam Hussein and especially any attempt to carry out a fait accompli-style referendum in Kirkuk can trigger very dangerous developments both in Iraq and neighboring countries and in the entire region," Erdogan said in a speech in parliament.

He stressed that a failure to avoid "a blood feud" between Sunnis and Shiites after the hanging of the ousted dictator might result in "deepening polarization in Iraq and the Arab world."

In comments on Kirkuk, Erdogan said ethnic tensions there would only flare up if a referendum to determine the city's status, planned for 2007, is held despite what he described as Kurdish moves to upset its demographic composition.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders want to incorporate Kirkuk and its rich oil fields into their autonomous region in the north -- a move that Ankara sees as a part of Kurdish designs to break away from Baghdad.

The city has sizeable populations of Arabs as well as Turkmen, a community of Turkish descent backed by Ankara.

Turkey accuses the Iraqi Kurds of having moved thousands of their people to Kirkuk and its environs since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 in a bid to change its demographic structure in their favor ahead of the referendum.

"As a friend, I will speak openly -- fait accomplis that disregard (the views of) neighboring countries, and primarily Turkey, will not help stability in Iraq," he said. "I feel obliged to make this warning as early as today to those who are after Iraq's partition and fait accomplis in Kirkuk."

Ankara fears that an independent Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq would fuel separatism among its own restive Kurdish minority in adjoining southeast Turkey.

Erdogan said he would discuss the situation in Iraq with the country's Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, in Istanbul on Saturday.