"In our hearts we are happy, but in our minds we know that this may create problems for us," said a shopkeeper in the Kurdish-dominated town of Silopi, just 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Iraqi border.

Ahmed -- not his real name -- fears that even a brief occupation of the strategic cities by Kurdish forces will lead to a clampdown by Turkish authorities. In the past, pro-Kurdish politicians in the area have disappeared, allegedly while in Turkish police custody.

Turkey has threatened to send its own forces into Iraq to prevent the creation of an independent Kurdish state, something made possible if the Kurds controlled the region's extensive oil resources.

Ankara fears such an entity would revive the nationalist aspirations of its own sizeable Kurdish minority, with which it has established a fragile truce after years of armed conflict.

As a result, peshmerga fighters who took over Iraqi-controlled Kirkuk on Thursday were already promising to leave on Friday, in the face of US and Turkish pressure.

The conflict between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish government cost the lives of over 36,000 people between 1984 and 1999, when the PKK said they would seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.

The Turkish army, however, has brushed aside the PKK's truce as a ploy and continues to pursue the rebels.

Silopi's inhabitants now say that more and more plainclothes policemen have appeared as Kurdish forces advanced on Kirkuk. Those who dare speak fall silent as the policemen pass.

"If fighting breaks out between Turks and peshmergas, we will pay the price," continues Ahmed.

"But if they reach agreement and the Iraqi Kurds achieve some kind of independence, it would make me very happy. Perhaps then we also might achieve some kind of autonomy and the removal of some of the restrictions," he says.

One of the Kurds' key demands is the right to attend Kurdish-language schools. A recent law forbids teaching in Kurdish, except in private schools, thus making learning the language prohibitively expensive.

Meanwhile, the European Union has demanded that Ankara grant its 12 million strong Kurdish minority more rights if Turkey is to become a member state.

"God willing, and with the help of the United States, we can all live in peace," says stallkeeper Haci, again not his real name.

If the United States helps the Iraqi Kurds towards independence, all that Ankara would care about is the raising of trade sanctions with Iraq that have cost Turkey billions of dollars in lost business, says Mehmet.

"Of course I support the peshmergas because they are Kurds, like me. But everything depends on the Americans," says another shopkeeper, Hajdar.

But do Turkish Kurds feel closer to Iraqi Kurds or to the Turks? "I am divided, but ethnic origin is of course very important," says Hajdar, with one eye on the door to see who's coming in.

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