"All our activities... are taking place within our borders," General Bekir Kalyoncu, head of operations at the general staff, told a group of journalists, the Anatolia news agency reported.

"If the conditions (for a cross-border operation) arise, Turkey will use its rights as any sovereign country," he said. "Those conditions are outlined in the UN Charter."

Turkey has amassed thousands of troops along the border with Iraq for what officials describe as a large-scale effort to prevent increasing infiltrations by rebels from the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), based in mountainous hideouts in northern Iraq.

The general staff said it had intelligence that the PKK was planning to step up violence this year and "create a climate of chaos in the country."

The army has repeatedly said that Article 51 of the UN Charter provides for the right of "hot pursuit" against the PKK on Iraqi territory.

The article acknowledges the right of self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member nation.

Ankara has long urged Washington and Baghdad to root out the PKK from northern Iraq, but it has been told that violence in other parts of the conflict-torn country is their priority.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, has been fighting the government since 1984 when it took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in adjoining southeast Turkey.

"The movement of the terrorists has become easier because no forces of the Iraqi government are present on the other side of border to ensure control," Kalyoncu said, referring to northern Iraq, which is administered by the Iraqi Kurds.

The PKK has markedly stepped up violence this year. At least 20 members of the security forces have been killed in clashes and landmine attacks blamed on the rebels, while the PKK has lost at least 53 people.

Kurdish militants have also claimed eight bomb attacks in urban centers, which killed four people and left 95 injured.

The Turkish army conducted incursions into northern Iraq before the 2003 US-led invasion, with the support of local Iraqi Kurds.

But relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds have cooled since the invasion. Washington also opposes cross-border operations on the grounds they could further complicate the troubled security situation in Iraq.

Turkey already has about 1,500 troops on Iraqi territory, stationed along the border since a major-cross border operation in 1997.

Kalyoncu said the soldiers were responsible for border security and were not involved in any "operational" activities, vowing they would remain there "as long as the terrorist organization remains in the area," Anatolia reported.

"Regardless of where they are harbored, terrorist organizations sooner or later inflict harm on that region," he said. "We believe the Iraqi authorities are also aware of that and that's why we have not encountered any major problem so far regarding those troops."

On Sunday, Baghdad accused Iranian forces of entering five kilometers (three miles) into Iraq and shelling PKK positions.

For around a year, Iran, which has its own Kurdish minority, has been battling infiltrations by Pejak, a Kurdish group linked to the PKK.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK launched its separatist campaign in 1984.