ANKARA, March 20 (AFP) -  The United States will not disclose its real plans regarding arch-enemy Iraq, whom it is threatening with military action for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction, a prominent Iraqi Kurdish leader said here on Wednesday.

"The Americans will never tell anyone their real policy towards Iraq," Jalal Talabani, who heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told reporters in response to a question on US Vice President Dick Cheney's just-ended regional tour to rally support for the anti-terror drive.

On his 12-nation tour, Cheney met with stiff resistance, especially from Arab countries, to possible strikes on Iraq for its refusal to allow UN weapons inspectors to return.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said Tuesday after talks with Cheney that Washington was not planning to take military action against Iraq "in the near future."

Turkey, a key Muslim ally of Washington is also opposed to any operation against Iraq, which it fears would deliver a serious blow to its crisis-hit economy and lead to an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

Such a state could fan separatist sentiments among Turkey's own Kurds in the southeast, where a 15-year Kurdish rebellion has eased since 1999.

Another opponent of military action against Baghdad is Talabani himself: On his previous visit to Ankara in early March, he said that he preferred a democratic change of regime in Iraq involving forces within the country instead of a military intervention from outside.

Talabani came to Ankara Tuesday on his second visit in less than two weeks and met the undersecretary at the Turkish foreign ministry, Ugur Ziyal, on Wednesday.

The PUK leader said after the meeting that he had asked Ankara to persuade more Turkish businessmen to invest in northern Iraq.

"We already have five Turkish companies, but we would like to see 50 Turkish companies," he said.

Talabani added that there were many construction and infrastructure projects to be undertaken in northern Iraq and said the PUK had the money to pay for them.

"We have about 1,500 million dollars in the bank," he said.

Northern Iraq has been outside Baghdad's control following the 1991 Gulf war, and much of it is controlled by Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani.