140 000 Turkish Troops on Iraq Border

Australian Broadcasting Corporation - '140,000' Turkish soldiers line Iraq border

Iraq says Turkey has 140,000 soldiers along its border with the country's north as part of a "great mobilisation".

Turkey's armed forces have urged its Government to allow an incursion into neighbouring, mainly Kurdish northern Iraq to crush up to 4,000 Turkish Kurdish militants who use the region as a base to attack security and civilian targets inside Turkey.

Rumours of a possible Turkish incursion have rattled financial markets and have drawn warnings from the US, Ankara's NATO ally, to stay out of Iraq.