Selcuk Unal, the foreign ministry spokesman, says Friday that the ministry official Feridun Sinirlioglu, will travel to Baghdad on Saturday and will also visit Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq.

The rebels maintain bases in northern Iraq from where they launch attacks on Turkish targets. Tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict since 1984.

Turkey last month bombed suspected rebel positions in northern Iraq, following a spate of attacks on its troops blamed on Kurdish rebels.