Under mounting pressure to toughen measures against rebel violence ahead of elections on July 22, Erdogan told the CNN Turk news channel late Friday he was awaiting a response to a letter he sent recently to Maliki proposing talks by the end of June.

Ankara is also in contact with Washington on the issue, he said.

"This is a diplomacy offensive. The result of this diplomacy offensive could shape certain things," he said.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has notably stepped up attacks this year.

A soldier returning from an operation against the group became the latest victim Saturday as he stepped on a landmine planted by the PKK in a mountainous area in Sirnak province, which borders Iraq and Syria, local security sources said.

The influential Turkish army has called for a cross-border operation to destroy PKK bases in adjoining northern Iraq, where, Ankara says, the rebels also obtain weapons and explosives for attacks in Turkey.

Erdogan stressed Tuesday military action should be the last resort, saying that Ankara would seek dialogue with Baghdad and focus on fighting the PKK inside Turkey.

He told CNN Turk the government had not ruled out an eventual incursion into northern Iraq.

"If necessary, parliament can take a decision (to authorise military action) so that we can have it at hand ... But we have to come to that point first," he said.

The army has charged that Iraqi Kurds, who run northern Iraq, tolerate and even support the rebels.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul Thursday accused the Iraqi authorities of making "no effort at all" against the PKK, which, he said, has between 3,500 and 3,800 militants based in northern Iraq.

Anti-PKK operations in Turkey last year resulted in the seizure of two tonnes of plastic explosives originating from Iraq, he said.

Public anger boiled over in May when a suspected PKK militant blew himself up in a busy shopping centre in Ankara, killing seven people.

The Turkish army has launched a large-scale crackdown against the PKK in Turkey's east and southeast and massed troops on the border with Iraq.

Washington is opposed to Turkish military action in northern Iraq, wary that this would destabilise a relatively peaceful region of the conflict-torn country and further strain tense ties between Ankara and Iraqi Kurds, staunch US allies.

The PKK took up arms for self-rule in the Kurdish-majority region in 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.