The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region is set to meet Turkish leaders in Ankara.
Masud Barzani is expected to hold talks with President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the capital in separate meetings.
Barzani has said Iraq's Kurds plan to hold an independence referendum within months.
He says Iraq is already effectively partitioned due to the territorial gains made by Sunni militants of the Islamic State -- formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
ISIL has swept across large parts of northern and western Iraq and declared a "caliphate" in territories seized across Iraq and Syria.
Turkey, which has its own Kurdish minority, has said it is committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq but has enjoyed burgeoning trade ties with Iraq's Kurdistan region in recent years and has moved to grant Turkish Kurds greater rights.
