ANKARA, Nov 18 (AFP) - Iraqi Kurds will have no choice but to proclaim independence in the event of civil war in Iraq, Massud Barzani, president of northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish zone, said Friday.

Inan interview with Turkish television station NTV on a day of fresh bombings of Shiite mosques in Iraq, Barzani said an outbreak of civil war would force Iraqi Kurds to exercise the "right" to independence.

"May God save us from civil war, but if others start fighting among themselves and there is an outbreak, we will have no other alternative," he said.

He said that while independence was a "natural and legitimate right" for Iraqi Kurds, they would "at this stage" implement the country's new constitution in support of a "democratic federal and pluralist" Iraq.

Turkey fears a declaration of independence by Iraq's Kurds would inflame a rebellion by separatists within its own large Kurdish minority.

Barzani downplayed the presence of anti-Turkey Kurdish rebels in his territory of northern Iraq, saying there was no military solution to the unrest in Turkey.

At least 55 people were killed and 62 wounded when two suicide bombers blew themselves up Friday amid worshippers at two Shiite mosques in the Iraqi town of Khanaqin, northeast of Baghdad, a top provincial official said.

Authorities imposed a curfew in the majority Shiite Kurdish town, some 170 kilometres (110 miles) northeast, near the Iranian border

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