The United States has asked Turkey to send troops to Iraq, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been quoted as saying.
Mr Erdogan did not say whether Turkey had agreed to send the soldiers, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.
Local media speculated the US request was made during Friday talks with two top US generals in Turkey's capital Ankara.
Turkey already stations thousands of troops inside the border with northern Iraq in a controversial deployment it says is necessary to prevent Kurdish guerrillas returning to Turkey to attack targets there.Washington and Ankara are already discussing ways to get rid of Kurdish militants in northern Iraq as the two NATO allies work to patch up relations hit by Turkey's refusal in March to allow US troops in to attack its southern neighbour.
Relations between the allies further soured earlier this month when US forces briefly detained 11 Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq on alleged suspicion of planning to assassinate a local Kurdish official there.
Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania have agreed to help patrol Iraq, where the United States has faced a wave of attacks on its forces since Baghdad fell on April 9th.