BAGHDAD Sept 8 Iraq and Syria today warned Turkey not to go ahead with plans to set up a security zone inside Kurdish held territory in northern Iraq, reports Reuter

"We will take every necessary action in our part to prevent it (the buffer zone), said Hamed Youssef Hummadi. head of the Culture and Information Committee of Iraq's parila ment He did not elaborate on what measures Iraq might take

It was Baghdad's first warn ing to its northern neighbour since Ankara started a military build-up along their common border in an apparent attempt to establish a 5-10 km wide cor don to deter attacks by rebel Turkish Kurds

Turkish foreign minister Tansu Ciller said on Saturday that Turkey might empty some settlements within the buffer zone

Turkey fears that rebels of the Kurdistan workers party

(PKK) fighting for self rule in southeast Turkey using bases in northern Iraq, will profit from the inter Kurdls fighting there to mount attacks across the mountainous and porous bor der

The United Slates fired 44 cruise missiles at Iraqi mill tary targets last week and widened a no-fly zone in the south in response to Iraq s tn curston into the Kurdish held north at the end of August

Turkey s buffer zone, if established. would be within territory under the control of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which has allied itself with Iraq against Its old rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Syria warned Turkey saying that a buffer zone would put Ankara in conflict with Arab states and threaten the stability of the Middle East

The official Syrian news pa

Turkish plan as similar to the Israeli buffer zone in South Lebanon, accusing Washington of encouraging Turkey to take the decision

"Insisting of this (setting the zone) no doubt would have negative results on future Arab-Turkish ties because Arabs would be forced to take the needed decision to protect their rights the ruling party newspa per Ai-Baath said

AFP adds The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) today con demned the "Interference of certain neighbouring states in Iraqi Kurdistan, in reference to Turkey and Iran

Gulf Arab foreign ministers, at the end of a two-day meeting in Riyadh, urged an "Immediate and definitive halt to the inter ference of certain neighbouring states In the internal affairs of Iraq

Their final communique did not mention Turkey and Iran by name.

Omani Foreign Minister Yussef iban Alawi Abdallah said the Gulf states were also at odds with the United States over its missile strikes on Iraq, in retaliation for an Iraqi raid into a Kurdish safe haven' on August 31.

The GCC groups Saudi Arabia with Bahrain. Kuwait. Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) announced today that rival Kurdish guerillas backed by Iraqi fpvernment troops had cap-ured the northern Iraqi town of Koi Sanjaq near the border with Iran.

The PUK. in a statement received here, said it had lost the town of some 80,000 people to an offensive by Iraqi troops and fighters from the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDPI

Koi Sanlaq is the main town on a road leading to the northern Iraqi town of Sulaya maniyah. the last remaining stronghold in the region of the PUK