Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Turkey's Prime Minister says American-Turkish relations "should not be overshadowed" by the alleged U.S. detention of 11 Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq.

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said U.S.-Turkish relations have been positive recently, and he said that Turkey wants to bring the dispute over the soldiers to an end.

He said he and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney would speak about the matter in a phone call today.

Turkish officials and the Turkish media have been upset about the soldiers' alleged detention Friday in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah. Turkish media reports say the soldiers were detained in connection with an alleged plot to kill an Iraqi Kurd official.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has dismissed reports of the plot as baseless.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Erdogan said some of the soldiers had been released, but a government spokesman (Cemil Cicek) later retracted that report.

U.S. officials have yet to confirm that U.S. forces are actually holding the soldiers. The State Department did confirm that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has held phone conversations with Foreign Minister Gul.

Before the war, Turkey sent military advisers into northern Iraq to keep watch on Iraqi Kurds. Turkey fears that with Saddam Hussein gone, the Kurds could try to set up an independent state and re-ignite the Kurdish rebellion in southeast Turkey.

U.S.-Turkish relations underwent severe strain earlier this year when Turkey refused to let U.S. troops use the country as a launching pad for the invasion of Iraq.

Some information for this report provided by Reuters and AP.