ANKARA, November 14 (RIA Novosti) - The United States started sharing intelligence on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with Turkey on Wednesday, the Turkish foreign minister said.

"Real and timely intelligence sharing work has begun," Ali Babacan said.

At a meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and George W. Bush in Washington on November 5, the U.S. leader pledged to share military intelligence with Ankara on Kurdish militants.

The separatist PKK, which has killed around 40 Turkish troops and civilians since late September, is considered a terrorist organization by both Turkey and the U.S.

On Wednesday national media quoted Erdogan as saying that the Turkish army will launch a cross-border operation against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq before weather conditions worsen.

"The time for the carrying out of the operation is approaching. The operation will begin before the weather conditions worsen, [before] winter," Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted by the Zaman newspaper as saying.

Commentators say the prime minister's remarks indicate that the operation could start in the very near future, although Erdogan has yet to provide a time frame.

However, the president of Iraq said on Wednesday that the crisis on the Iraqi-Turkish border "is effectively over".

In an interview with the Cairo-based Al-Ahram weekly newspaper, Jalal Talabani said that an Iraqi delegation at a recent conference in Istanbul had managed to convince the Turkish leadership that Baghdad was "fighting against the Kurdistan Workers Party" based in northern Iraq.

In mid-October, Turkey's parliament sanctioned military cross-border operations against PKK separatists following an earlier government request and despite opposition from Washington and Baghdad.