SALAHUDDIN, Iraq -- Kurdish leaders said Friday they will resist if the United States lets Turks join an invasion of northern Iraq, raising fears American troops will be caught in a generations-old ethnic struggle for control of the strategic border region.

Turkey plans to send thousands of troops into northern Iraq during any U.S. invasion, ostensibly to provide humanitarian aid for people displaced by the fighting. It also wants to prevent weapons held by Kurdish groups from falling into the hands of independence-minded Turkish Kurds, who also have bases in northern Iraq.

"Our people are going to resist the plan with all the means at their disposal," said Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdul Rahman. "Nothing whatsoever will persuade us to accept an incursion of Turkish forces."

"The answer of our people is a flat no," he told reporters after closed-door sessions of a conference of 50 members of an Iraqi opposition steering committee formed in December to guide plans for the country if Saddam Hussein is toppled.

The Kurds fear the Turks will remain indefinitely in northern Iraq and try to subjugate Kurdish aspirations of self-rule because Ankara fears that could encourage Turkey's own sizable Kurdish minority's demands for the same rights.

'A boot on our chest'

Turkish troops will be "a boot on our chest" meant to "strangle our people," Rahman said.

"The freedom of our people is part of the price paid to Turkey" for its cooperation in the U.S. military plan, he said at the mountain stronghold of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Kurds in the bazaars, streets and even the floor of the Kurdish parliament have said they would be willing to take up arms against any Turkish forces who enter the autonomous enclave. That could drag U.S. troops into an ethnic war as they are trying to restore order in a post-Saddam Iraq.

If such a situation arises, Kurdish officials and Iraqi opposition figures privately have suggested they would launch a propaganda battle against a U.S.-led war, casting America as an enemy of the Iraqi people's aspirations for freedom.

Rahman's Kurdistan Democratic Party governs the western half of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, a relatively democratic enclave created by their oppressed minority after the 1991 Gulf War and protected from Saddam's forces by U.S. and British air patrols. The eastern part is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

The Kurds generally have been pro-American. But their concerns about a possible Turkish incursion are growing.

In exchange for their cooperation in a possible U.S. northern front against Saddam, Turks have asked Washington for money and guarantees that Iraqi Kurds living within a de facto Kurdish-run government won't use the war as an opportunity to declare an independent state.

One of the two top Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani, sought to assure Turkey on Thursday that the Kurds will not declare an independent state.

The Kurds also are enraged at reports Turkey wants the Kurds' battle-hardened militiamen to be disarmed.

Kurdish officials and Iraqi opposition leaders have hinted they would seek help from Iran, a U.S. enemy that hosts thousands of exiled Iraqi Shiite warriors -- the "Badr Brigades" of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq -- on Iraq's eastern border.

Hamid al-Bayati a senior member of the Supreme Council, was asked whether Iran would intervene if Turkey sends in troops.

"They have an option to allow the Badr brigade to enter" Iraq, he replied.

A U.S. delegation to the talks is headed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the White House liaison to the Iraqi opposition. At the opening of the gathering on Wednesday, Khalilzad tried to allay the opposition's fears of a planned U.S.-military government. He assured them the martial rule would be a transition to full democracy and would be kept as brief as possible.

Khalilzad also announced a proposal to break up the Iraqi opposition groups into five task forces to deal with a range of government issues.

On Thursday, al-Bayati said the conference had appointed a six-member executive to serve as an "interim leadership" in a post-Saddam Iraq. The opposition figures also have organized 14 subcommittees to address details of post-Saddam governance.

Two of those designated for the leadership committee did not attend -- Adnan Pachachi, a secular Sunni and former foreign minister, and Ayad Allawi, head of Iraqi National Accord, which has links to the U.S. establishment.

Pachachi released a statement denying knowledge of the committee and said he would not take part.