Ankara -- which has threatened to intervene militarily in northern Iraq if local Kurds are allowed to take over Kirkuk or Mosul -- again warned on Thursday that any bid by the Kurds to retain permanent control of Kirkuk would be inadmissible.

"It would be unacceptable if they (the Kurds) entered the town to take control and set up an administration," a senior diplomat at the Turkish foreign ministry told AFP on Thursday on condition of anonymity.

"We will do what is necessary. Turkey's position is open and clear," warned Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, in a statement quoted by Anatolia news agency.

Ankara fears that if the Iraqi Kurds wrest control of Iraqi oil resources they could seek independence, triggering a similar move among the restless fellow Kurds just across the border in southern Turkey.

Fighting between the Turkish army and the country's separatist Kurds caused more than 36,000 deaths between 1984 and 1999. Violence has since subsided in southeastern Turkey but Ankara is taking no chances.

Kirkuk is a prized target for the Kurds and has been designated as PUK capital by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) -- one of the Kurdish groups controlling the part of Iraq just north and east of Kirkuk and Mosul.

Iraqi Kurds lay claim to Kirkuk and Mosul, saying they were in the majority there before the cities were taken over by Arabs under the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Apart from a brief period when it was siezed by the Kurds during the 1991 Gulf war, the city has to date remained under Baghdad's control.

Saddam sought to reduce Kurdish influence in Kirkuk in the late 1970s by settling Arabs there and driving out millions of its Kurdish residents and the ethnic Turkic minority -- the Turkmens.

Ankara, which says it must defend the Turkmens, warned on Thursday against any attempt by the Kurds to modify the city's ethnic make-up.

Turkey's fears about the future of Kirkuk and Mosul have been exacerbated by tensions with Washington over the Ankara parliament's refusal to allow US troops invade Iraq from its territory.

Last week US Secretary of State Colin sought to assuage Ankara's concerns, while simultaneously warning against any Turkish intervention in northern Iraq. "There is no need for any movement of Turkish forces across the border," Powell told a joint news conference with Gul in Ankara.

"We have been able to stabilize the situation in the way that I think will keep the likelihood of a need for an incursion very much under control."

Gul told NTV television on Thursday the United States had pledged to send in fresh troops to replace the Kurds who had moved into Kirkuk and that the two sides had agreed Turkish military observers should be sent there to verify whether the Kurdish forces were indeed leaving.

"He (Powell) said they would send new US forces to Kirkuk in a few hours. They will take out those who have entered," Gul said.

"We will have military observers there... They (the United States) made the offer and we accepted it," he added.

Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul said earlier on Thursday US forces had promised that Kurdish fighters would only be allowed to enter Kirkuk under US command, Anatolia news agency reported.

"The coalition has kept its promises. I think it will continue to do so," he said.

"Ankara refuses to envisage the possibility that the United States might not keep its word," Turksih dailty newspaper Milliyet commented on Thursday.

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