US assures Turkey that it does not arm the PKK. As U.S. officials confirmed that some weapons, originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military, had been seized by Turkish authorities, the Pentagon said it had not armed and does not arm the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Washington emphasizes is a terrorist group.

  Turkey has long been complaining that the PKK is using some U.S.-issued weapons, urging Washington to resolve the problem and to illuminate past cases.

  Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, although he did not confirm that some U.S.-supplied weapons had definitely fallen into the PKK's hands, assured Turkey that the arming of the terrorist group by Washington was out of the question.

  "It is the policy of this government and this department that the PKK are terrorists," he told reporters.

  "We don't deal with terrorists. We don't deal with the PKK and we certainly don't arm the PKK," Morrell said."So if American-issued weapons have ended up in the hands of criminals in Turkey or terrorists in Turkey, that is not based upon the policy of this department or this government."

 US official's visit

  He said a senior Pentagon official visited Turkey last month to discuss the matter.

  "The secretary (of Defense Robert Gates) dispatched the general counsel for this department, Jim Haynes. He went over to Turkey, heard firsthand the Turkish concerns and expressed our commitment to work with them to get to the bottom of this," the spokesman said.

  Gates was "deeply troubled by the reports and allegations" about problems accounting for American-supplied weapons in Iraq, Morrell said.

  The defense secretary is sending the Pentagon inspector general, Claude Kicklighter, to probe allegations that American-supplied weapons had been improperly accounted for and fallen into the wrong hands, including Turkish complaints on the PKK using U.S.-issued arms.

  Turkish ambassador to Washington, Nabi Şensoy, in July accused Iraqi Kurdish groups of providing the PKK with U.S.-supplied weapons.

  But The New York Times quoted Pentagon officials as saying that they so far had had no evidence for that.

  The officials suggested that the weapons might have been stolen or lost during firefights and smuggled into Turkey after being sold on Iraq's extensive black market for firearms.

  By checking serial numbers, American officials confirmed that some of the weapons recovered in Turkey, which included handguns made by Glock, an Austrian weapons manufacturer, had originally been bought by the Pentagon for distribution in Iraq, according to the newspaper.