The committee will meet every two months to "to exchange intelligence and to coordinate security measures to combat the PKK," it said in a statement.

The announcement followed a meeting on Wednesday between US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, visiting Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to discuss the plan.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said after the meeting that the committee would "track the threat" represented by the Marxist guerilla movement based along the mountainous Iraq-Turkey border.

The rebels have repeatedly attacked Turkey from their mountain hideouts in Iraq while Turkey has shelled suspected PKK bases across the border in a conflict that has troubled relations between the two states.

Last month Turkey's parliament extended by one year the government's mandate to strike the PKK in northern Iraq, where Turkish officials estimate about 2,000 fighters are hiding in the mountains.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.