ANKARA, October 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Turkey said Monday, October 14, it would set up a "security belt" in northern Iraq if the United States hits Baghdad, and renewed a threat of military action to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state in the region.

Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said in an interview with NTV television that if a U.S. operation against Iraq triggered a refugee exodus, Turkish troops would move into northern Iraq to stop the wave within Iraqi borders, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"This will be a force of a number sufficient for such a job. This will at the same time (ensure) our border security and constitute a security belt," Cakmakoglu said.

Turkey, which suspects Iraqi Kurds of wanting to set up an independent state, acknowledged it is already keeping several hundred troops in northern Iraq.

Ankara fears that a Kurdish state in the region could incite its own Kurds to separatism at a time when a 15-year Kurdish rebellion for self-rule in adjoining southeast Turkey has abated.

"The Turkish armed forces are a deterrent force both with respect to its size and its weapons ... If this deterrent force impedes the situation we do not want in Iraq, it will have completed its objective," Cakmakoglu said.

"But if we do not get a result through this deterrent force, then we have to move one step forward. This could be a show of force if necessary, or an intervention," he added.

Cakmakoglu spoke about a number of military options available to Turkey, while stressing that parliamentary approval was required for operations outside the country.

"I do not see the possibility of a war at present, but we will have to bring the issue to parliament and take a decision, be it a dispatch of soldiers, a (military) exercise, or even a show of force to indicate that we are balancing the situation," he said.

Iraqi Kurds have ruled northern Iraq outside Baghdad's control and under the protection of a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone since the 1991 Gulf War.

The two main factions in the area - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) - recently mended fences after years of animosity and their joint parliament, dormant since 1996, reopened earlier this month.

They also drafted a constitution for a future Iraqi federation made up of an Arab and a Kurdish region, the latter to have as its capital the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which is currently under Baghdad's control.

Cakmakoglu said it was "unacceptable" for Turkey that Kirkuk should become the center of any "Kurdish movement."

Kurdish control of regional oil resources could make an independent Kurdish state in the mountainous and landlocked area a viable option.

Allowing the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq would mean "saying yes" for possible moves by the Kurds of Turkey, Iran and Syria to join it afterwards, Cakmakoglu said.

"I do not think there is even a probability neither for us nor Syria and Iran and even Iraqi officials... to say yes to that," he said.