The United States and Britain agreed yesterday to launch a trilateral mechanism next month to deal with the Kurdish rebel attacks into Turkey.

The proposal was made after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

At the press conference after their meeting, they told reporters that they hoped ministers from the United States, Turkey and Iraq could meet during a conference on Iraq, set for Nov. 2-3 in Istanbul.

The PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, earlier offered Ankara a ceasefire on condition that the Turkish military abandons plans for an incursion into Iraq and ends its attacks against the separatist group, but Britain and the US insisted that "there need to be real deals."

Tensions in northern Iraq from where Kurdish rebels have launched attacks into Turkey have caught the world's attention, especially the US, an ally of Turkey.

The United States supports Ankara's effort to fight against Kurdish separatists operating in the Turkey-Iraq border area, but is opposed to Turkey's unilateral incursion into Iraq to hunt down the PKK.

"I am quite certain that we can sit down and we can work this out together if there is enough political will," Rice said at the conference.

The proposed meeting would discuss the implementation of a Sept. 28 anti-terrorism deal signed by Iraq and Turkey, according to a statement by Rice and Miliband.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.