The conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, risks spilling over into northern Iraq if Turkish troops launch a full-scale assault in an effort to stop cross-border attacks originating from bases in Kurdish controlled areas of Iraq.

Both Ankara and Washington consider the PKK a terrorist organization, and last November the Turkish parliament voted to authorize the country's military to pursue PKK fighters across the border into Iraq.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who spoke at the Woodrow Wilson center in Washington, DC, Tuesday, soon after his meeting with President George W. Bush and shortly before the U.S. president departed on an eight-day Middle East tour, said that he could not foresee a political solution to the problem of the PKK.

"When fighting terrorism, we fight arms with arms," Gul said.

He denied that he had discussed the prospect of a negotiated settlement with the Kurdish movement with officials in Washington.

"Neither today nor before nor at any other meeting that we've had, did we discuss this issue in this context, and we would not discuss this issue in that context," Gul said.

The Kurdistan Workers Party, said Gul, is the common enemy of Turkey and of the United States.

"Turkey is determined to fight against these terrorists."

Gul compared the PKK to al-Qaida, saying that just as one does not try to find a political solution with al-Qaida, neither does one try to find a political solution with the PKK.

The Turkish president said that "there are certain regions in Iraq, in the northern part of the country where the Iraqi government is unable to control some of its territory and exercise its full sovereignty in those areas. It's in those parts of the country where the terrorists organize their attacks into Turkey."

Gul said that the Kurdistan Workers Party had camps and training grounds "in those territories," referring to the area of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the local population sympathizes with their fellow Kurds.

Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed self-rule since the 1990-91 Gulf War, when U.S.-led forces declared a "no-fly zone" barring Iraqi President SADDAM HUSSEIN'S aircraft from flying over the area. And since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan has enjoyed autonomy from Baghdad.

"It is from there that attacks targeting Turkey's security forces, as well as civilians, are staged," said Gul.

"So how could one speak of a political solution when those acts of terrorism emanate externally, from another country?"

The Turkish president said that over the years Turkey and the United States have, "stood shoulder to shoulder in testing times, during the course of the years of the Korea war to the post Cold War era."

Gul added, "As we stood together we achieved success."