TEHRAN, April 7 (AFP) -  The interior ministry here denied Sunday Turkish media reports over the presence in Iran of a senior field commander of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Cemil Bayik, the official IRNA news agaency reported.
"Turkish Media reports on the presence of Cemil Bayik are unfouded and untrue and we have asked the Turkish government to submit related documents if they have any", Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, interior ministry spokesman said.

Turkish officials said Wednesday they had "official information" that Bayik, one of the closest aides of condemned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, was on Iranian territory and asked Iran to extradite him.

"Based on this information, we have made a formal request that the person in question is arrested and extradited to Turkey," Turkey's ambassador in Tehran, Selahattin Alpar, told Anatolia news agency last week.

Alpar said he had no information on whether Iranian authorities had already detained Bayik, who, according to Turkish media reports, was in the city of Ouroumieh near the Turkish-Iranian border.

Bayik, a senior member of the PKK leadership council, was tipped as one of the possible successors of Ocalan when Turkey captured the latter in February 1999 and sentenced him to death for treason several month later.

But the PKK subsequently decided to keep Ocalan, the sole inmate in the prison island of Imrali, as their chairman.

Bayik was also reported to be opposing a peace bid by Ocalan, under which the PKK declared in September 1999 that it was laying down its arms and withdrawing from Turkish territory.

He was based in northern Iraq, but was frequently crossing to Iran, a country that Ankara has accused of sheltering Kurdish rebels, according to media reports.

Alpar also said that relations with Iran had recently recorded a significant progress, particularly on cooperation against the PKK.

Iran's ambassador to Turkey, Mohammed-Hossein Lavasani, told Iranian radio two weeks ago that Iran and Turkey had agreed to recognize the PKK and Iran's main armed opposition, the People's Mujahedin, as "terrorists."

"The decision to consider as terrorists the MKO (Mujahedin) and the PKK was taken during a recent meeting and will enable the development of relations of trust between Tehran and Ankara," Lavasani said.