Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday for critical talks with Iraqi leaders over the crisis of the Kurdish rebels, the Dubai- based al-Arabiyah TV reported.

Babacan is expected to meet top Iraqi leaders, including Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his counterpart Hoshyar Zebari, the pan-Arab news television said.

The Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) said its group would observe a unilateral ceasefire with the Turkish troops on the Iraq-Turkey borders as of Monday evening.

But Abdul Rahman al-jadarje, in charge of the PKK foreign affairs, conditioned the ceasefire with the response from the Turkish side, saying, "The ceasefire will be an open-ended one as long as Turkish troops exercise restraint. If they attack us, then we will defend ourselves."

Last week, the Turkish parliament approved a motion submitted by the Turkish government for military incursion into neighboring Iraq to crack down on elements of the PKK based there.