ISTANBUL, Nov 7 (Reuters) - A Turkish soldier was killed late on Tuesday when Kurdish rebels fired on a police station in Tunceli province, security sources said on Wednesday.

The attack came a day after U.S. President George W. Bush told Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan that the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was a common enemy.

The two countries said they planned to share intelligence on PKK activities to stop the rebels from attacking targets within Turkey from bases in northern Iraq.

The statements helped ease concerns about an imminent major Turkish military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, but Erdogan, after his meeting with Bush in Washington, said action was planned against the PKK. He did not specify the size of the operation.

Turkey has assembled 100,000 troops in its southeast, readying for a cross-border operation into northern Iraq where some 3,000 PKK guerrillas are based.

Nearly 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict that began in 1984 when Kurdish separatists took up arms to fight for a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey. (Reporting by Thomas Grove; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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