Iraqi PM in Turkey for Security Talks - Leaders Agree to Deal To PKK

Turkey and Iraq's leaders have agreed to work together to remove the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party --or PKK -- from Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discussed ways of dealing with the PKK during their talks in Ankara Tuesday. The two leaders described their wide-ranging talks as positive.

Turkey says the PKK uses bases in northern Iraq to launch attacks inside Turkey. The head of northern Iraq's Kurdish administration -- Massoud Barzani -- has rejected Turkey's demands to crackdown on PKK guerrillas.

Turkey has previously threatened cross border raids to deal with the PKK. But the United States and Iraq say such operations could destabilize Iraq's relatively calm Kurdish north.

Mr. Maliki heads to Iran Wednesday.

In other developments, the U.S. Defense Department says a troop rotation has resulted in the largest ever number of U.S. troops to be stationed in Iraq.

A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, says there are between 161- and 162,000 U.S. troops there because of new troops overlapping with troops they are replacing.

In other news, the U.S. military says coalition forces killed eight terrorists in raids across the country since Monday. Troops also captured 15 suspected al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists in operations in Tikrit, Mosul and Bayji.

Separately, the military announced Tuesday that troops detained a commander of the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

ENDS