A special U.S. envoy for countering the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) said on Wednesday that use of force will be the last resort in his mission to help Turkey fight against the Iraq-based Kurdish guerrillas.

"Turkey is a sovereign country. Use of military force should be the last alternative. Turkey should make decisions in line with its interests," Joseph Ralston, the U.S. special coordinator for countering PKK said in an interview with private NTV news channel after a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The United States would take tangible measures on the PKK, Ralston said, adding that all measures would be taken for an influential fighting. However, he ruled out the possibility of meeting with PKK, and instead, he stressed the importance of political means.

"Meeting with the PKK is out of question for me. I never meet a terrorist organization. We want to get rid of them. I am intended to meet Turkish, Iraqi and U.S. governments and thus get rid of PKK organization," he said.

Earlier in the day, Ralston met with Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ali Tuygan and retired General Edip Baser, who was appointed as Turkey's anti-PKK coordinator.

Ralston said that he would travel to Baghdad from Ankara for talks with Iraqi officials.

Ralston's remarks came one day after a powerful bomb killed 10 people and injured 17 others in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish- majority city in southeastern Turkey.

Turkish authorities blamed the bombing on PKK.

Turkey has been asking the United States to launch a military operation against PKK bases in northern Iraq, saying that thousands of armed PKK militants have been using the region to launch anti-Turkey attacks.

The PKK, listed as a terror organization by the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

Source: Xinhua