ANKARA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - An Iraqi Kurdish leader said on Friday he wanted Turkey to withdraw its troops from northern Iraq, underscoring the tense relations between two potentially crucial players in any U.S. attack on Baghdad.

NATO ally Turkey maintains a military presence in neighbouring Iraq's northern Kurdish enclave to pursue separatists from its own Kurdish minority.

Ankara has threatened to intervene if Iraqi Kurds use a possible U.S. strike on Baghdad to push for independence, a move that could stir trouble among Turkish Kurds.

This was the first time that Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani has said he wanted to see an end to Turkey's military presence.

"They are here for their own duties, and when that is over we are going to sit down and raise this issue with the Turkish authorities. We want these troops to return home," Barzani said in a live interview with news channel CNN Turk.

Barzani's party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which jointly administer the Kurdish enclave in Iraq, deny having any plans to push for statehood, saying they only want autonomy within a united Iraq.

But relations with Ankara remain fraught with tension.

Turkish air bases and Iraqi Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters could both play vital roles in any U.S. offensive to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whom Washington accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction.

Turkey has around 1,000 soldiers in northern Iraq and officials say they also help protect a small Turkmen minority, with whom Turks share ethnic and linguistic ties, from attacks by Kurds or Arabs.

But their main target is the Kurdistan Workers Party, which waged a 17-year war for a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey.

More than 30,000 people died in the fighting which largely died down after Turkey captured rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. The rebels mostly withdrew to Iraq and Iran.