By ESRA AYGIN
The Associated Press
7/5/03 8:16 AM

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- U.S. forces raided a Turkish special forces office in northern Iraq and detained 11 soldiers, Turkish officials said Saturday. A Turkish newspaper said the arrests aimed to stop a plot by Turks to kill the Kurdish governor of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The detentions further strained ties between the longtime allies, who fell out over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded the soldiers' release.

A government official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said some 100 U.S. soldiers detained three Turkish officers and eight noncommissioned officers in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah Friday afternoon. They were taken to Kirkuk.

The U.S. forces were acting on intelligence reports that some Turks in Kirkuk were planning to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk, the newspaper Hurriyet said.

"This is an ugly incident," Erdogan said. "It should not have happened."

"For an allied country to behave in such a way toward its ally cannot be explained," he added.

After the arrests, Turkey closed the Habur border gate, the sole crossing point for aid and goods between Turkey and Iraq.

Erdogan said Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was in contact with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"We are assured (by U.S. officials) that the soldiers are safe. But we want them to be released as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

Sgt. Patrick Compton, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said he had no information on the incident. A U.S. Embassy official said Turkish officials had raised the issue late Friday, but said the embassy had no "concrete" information.

Turkey has long maintained a military presence in parts of northern Iraq in a campaign to suppress Turkish Kurd rebel operating in the region. At the onset of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Turkey threatened to send in troops, fearing Iraqi Kurds would establish an independent state in northern Iraq, which could fuel the separatist movement among Turkey's Kurds.

It has sent military observers to Kirkuk.

Kurdish rebels fought a 15-year war against Turkish troops for autonomy in Turkey's southeast, which has killed some 37,000 people. The rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999 after the capture of their leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The military rejected the cease-fire and sporadic fighting continues.

The incident comes as Turkey and the United States have been trying to repair relations strained over the Turkish parliament's refusal in March to allow thousands of U.S. combat troops in the country for an Iraq war.

It was the second time that U.S. forces detained Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq.

In April, the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade caught a dozen Turkish soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and trailing an aid convoy. U.S. forces suspected that the Turkish team was sent in to inflame local ethnic Turks, who already have tense relations with the city's Kurds and Arabs.

Erdogan said the latest seizures occurred Friday afternoon but did not give details, except to say the detentions came after "an issue over the municipality in Kirkuk."

"The fact that a 50-year-old ally has reverted to such an action has saddened us deeply. That such an action was carried out against an ally is a serious situation," Hurriyet quoted Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, the deputy chief of staff as saying.

Turkish military officials would not comment.

© 2003 The Associated Press