Turkey has sent large contingents of soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers to reinforce its border with Iraq amid a heated debate over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit terrorist group PKK's bases.

The images of military trucks rumbling along the remote border with Iraq's Kurdish zone and tanks being transferred on trains and trucks to reinforce an already formidable force there have dominated television screens and the front pages of several newspapers in the last few weeks.

The Turkish military has said it routinely reinforces the border with Iraq in the summer to prevent infiltration by the terrorists.

"The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey," Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, Oguz Celikkol, told CNN-Turk television on Wednesday after visiting Baghdad this week.

Asked whether Turkey could take unilateral action, Celikkol said: "Our expectation is that this issue is resolved before it comes to that point."

Erdogan did not rule out a cross-border Turkish operation.

"The target is to achieve results. Our patience has run out. The necessary steps will be taken when needed," he said.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday urged Iraq to take action.

"What we want from the Iraqi government is to take necessary steps to stop the terrorists' activities by any means," Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Bilman told reporters Wednesday.

Asked whether Celikkol informed Iraqi authorities about the possibility of a cross-border Turkish operation, Bilman said: "Such a decision is only Turkey's business, we do not have to inform anybody about the possibility of such an intervention."

In the past, cross-border operations have yielded mixed results, with many terrorists sheltering in hide-outs and emerging to fight again once the bulk of Turkish units withdrew from Iraq.

Iraqi Kurdish groups who run the northern Iraq have threatened to resist a Turkish incursion. If U.S. forces take action they risk alienating Iraqi Kurds, the most pro-American group in the region. If they don't, they risk increased tensions - and possibly worse - with two powerful rivals.

"All the explosives used by the PKK in Turkey are traced back to Iraq," Celikkol said.

Ankara has repeatedly expressed disappointment with Washington for what it says is a failure to crack down on PKK who take refuge in northern Iraq and frequently attack soldiers and government targets in Turkey.