"We will not permit either armed people or those without arms, who could try to destroy the demography and the structure of these towns," he said.

"We will not allow any fait-accompli," he stressed, adding he had set out Turkey's position clearly to th US Secretary of State Colin Powell in telephone talks Thursday.

He was speaking just after Iraqi Kurdish fighters backed by US forces seized the northern Iraqi oil capital of Kirkuk.

Both Kurds and Turkmens -- an Iraqi ethnic Turkish minority backed by Ankara -- claim Kirkuk and Mosul as their own.

Thousands of Kurds and Turkmens were forced out of Kirkuk by the regime of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein under his policy of "Arabization" or ethnic cleansing.

The displaced people were replaced by Arabs who were given incentives to settle in the area.

Now with the end of the Saddam regime, Kurds and Turkmens are both awaiting their chance to reclaim former homes in the oil-rich region.

Demographics is important as it could determine the electoral mix of populations in an area where rival ethnic groups want to establish regional control in the framework of a federal Iraqi state.

SPACE.WIRE