"We are in favour of another one-year extention," Erdogan said in New York, where he attended the annual UN General Assembly meeting, according to Anatolia news agency.

"We will discuss the motion at the first cabinet meeting and send it immediately to parliament," Erdogan said, without specifying a date.

The current one-year mandate expires on October 17.

The motion is likely to be easily approved by parliament, in which Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party holds a comfortable majority, with solid opposition support on the issue.

Parliament had already once extended the mandate, first approved in 2007.

The mandate authorises the government to order cross-border military action against hideouts of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, which the rebels use as a launching pad for strikes on Turkish targets.

Using intelligence supplied by the United States, the Turkish army has staged a series of air raids against rebels in the region since December 2007, and in February the following year carried out a week-long ground incursion.

The government is currently working on a plan of democratic reforms to win over the Kurdish minority and erode popular support for the rebels.

Since last year, Turkey has also sought better ties with the Iraqi Kurds, whom it has accused of tolerating and even aiding the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community.

But both Erdogan and the army have dismissed calls from Kurdish activists to stop military operations against the group.

The PKK took up arms in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.