US troops and local Kurdish fighters have clashed with Turkish Kurd rebels hiding in northern Iraq, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said yesterday.
Media reports said a local Kurdish fighter was killed in the fighting.
The clashes, which Gul said took place on Sunday, are the first known armed confrontation between US forces and the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK, also known as KADEK) since the United States occupied Iraq.
Turkey has repeatedly called on the United States to move against the PKK guerrillas, who have set up bases in a mountainous region of northeastern Iraq.
"Not only US soldiers, but also peshmergas clashed with the PKK," Gul told reporters, referring to fighters from Kurdish groups in northern Iraq who are allied with Washington.
"Several American helicopters were also involved," he said.
Turkey had recently expressed frustration over what it saw as US reluctance to purge northern Iraq of the PKK, branded a "terrorist" organization by both Ankara and Washington.
Last month, the two sides agreed on an "action plan," including military measures, against the group.
Ankara says up to 5,000 PKK rebels are hiding in northern Iraq.
In September, the PKK, which fought a bloody 15-year campaign for self-rule in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, ended a four-year unilateral ceasefire with Ankara.
Meanwhile, a US military policeman died in ongoing attacks on coalition troops and their allies, the US command said yesterday, as the US Army intensified operations to root out the growing insurgency, AP reports from Baghdad.
The brief statement said the MP was killed Sunday evening by a rocket-propelled grenade fired at a patrol in the town of Iskandariyah, 40 miles south of Baghdad.
The death brought to 37 the number of American soldiers who have died in Iraq this month. The downing last week of the Chinook and the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter made the first week of November the bloodiest for American forces since President George W Bush declared an end to major combat May 1.