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Turkey's parliament has given permission for the government to launch military operations into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels. The vote was taken in defiance of pressure from the US and Iraq, which have called on Turkey for restraint.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the motion does not mean a military operation is imminent.
But he said Turkey needed to be able to respond to a recent rise in bomb attacks blamed on PKK rebels from Iraq.
As the vote was being counted, President George W Bush strongly urged America's Turkish ally not to carry out the threatened action.
He said Washington was "making it clear to Turkey it is not in their interest to send more troops in... there is a better way to deal with the issue".
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki had earlier phoned the Turkish prime minister, saying he was "absolutely determined" to remove the PKK from Iraq and pleading for more time, according to Turkey's Anatolia news agency.
Armenian question
The autonomous Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq warned Turkish MPs that any intervention would be "illegal". It has denied providing the PKK with any help.
The rebels themselves said they would meet force with force.
The chief of the PKK's executive council, Murat Karayilan, told the Kurdish Hawlati newspaper: "Thousands of PKK guerrillas are on standby to fight Turkish army forces."
However Syrian President Bashar Assad, visiting Turkey, said he supported the country's right to take the action "against terrorism and terrorist activities".
President Bush, speaking during a press conference, criticised Congress for jeopardising US relations with Turkey with a planned vote to recognise the mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman times as genocide.
"One thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire," he said.
Although a Congressional committee has supported the motion, its chances of passing a full vote appear to be waning.
Key Democrats in the US House of Representatives have joined Republicans to warn that US strategic interests could be damaged by the largely symbolic resolution.
BBC
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