Amidst increasing pressure from both Turkey and the United States, Iraq announced on Saturday it will intensify its efforts to track down and arrest the Kurdish guerrilla leaders responsible for raids across the Turkey border.

"We have taken a clear decision to close PKK camps in northern Iraq. We will take strong measures against the PKK," Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said during talks of the conference of Iraq's neighbors and major powers held in Istanbul.

To those expecting Iraq to sent troops in pursuit of the rebels, government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said that this isn’t going to happen because it is too difficult. He added that if it isn’t in Iraq’s capability to capture the PKK members, than Turkey couldn’t and shouldn’t do it either.

On the other hand, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan underlined yet again the fact that the situation needs to be immediately dealt with and it can not accept any delay.

"Terrorist organizations based in regions of Iraq hurt neighboring countries," Erdogan said. "This requires urgent and substantial measures."

During the same day of the Iraqi statement that it will deal with the rebels, things got in motion and the peshmergas controlling of the autonomous Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq raided and closed down an office of the PKK-linked Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party in the town of Erbil on Saturday, the NTV television station reported. Thus the immediate move of the Iraqi government did exactly what Ankara was insistently demanding for the past weeks.

The Istanbul regional conference, meant to discus the internal security of Iraq, has been overshadowed by the threat of a possible Turkish offensive across the Iraqi border and against the PKK camps. However, according to a source from the German delegation, the Turkey-PKK crisis hadn’t disrupted the talks. Moreover, the participant countries made decisions to establish an ad-hoc support mechanism in order to aid the Baghdad administration.

The situation was getting tenser with every day passing by, especially with Turkey beginning to mass troops on the border and repeating its will to act on its own if the U.S. and Iraq fail to deal with the PKK rebels.

"The time for words is over, it is time for action," Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said on Friday after meeting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

During that meeting, Rice announced that the U.S. will redouble its efforts in order to deal with the PKK rebels and that Washington is currently working on a comprehensive plan to solve the issue. However, the details of the program will be disclosed and further discussed on Monday during the scheduled meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President George Bush in Washington.
According to Turkish intelligence, there may be about 3,500 PKK rebels holed up in mountainous northern Iraq.

The U.S. urged Turkey not to launch a unilaterally operation across the border due to fears that it will most likely result in civilian casualties, thus creating unrest in the one area of Iraq still considered relatively calm.