ANKARA, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- Turkey vowed here Wednesday to continue to take necessary measures against the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

    Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin was quoted as saying that "Turkey will continue to take required military and political measures regarding its security within the framework of international law."

    Ozugergin said at a press conference that the country would end the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq in cooperation with the Iraqi government.

    Ankara has expressed the determination Iraq's central government and local authorities, said Ozugergin, expressing Turkey's expectation and belief that the Iraqi side would fulfill their commitments to Turkey.

    Referring to the trilateral mechanism among Turkey, Iraq and the United States, the spokesman said that "executives of the three countries are still discussing the details about the mechanism, which would become operational soon."

    He, meanwhile, revealed that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari might visit Turkey in the near future, without giving definite time of the visit.

    Turkish warplanes hit PKK targets in Qandil region of northern Iraq twice in the last two days as the Turkish military had taken tougher actions against the PKK after the country's legislature extended on Oct. 8 the government's mandate to launch cross-border operations against the rebels.

    The PKK took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey. Some 40,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.