NEW DELHI — Defense Secretary Robert Gates has a message for Turkish leaders: Get your troops out of northern Iraq in the next few days.

"It's very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave," Gates said before heading to Ankara later today from India. "They have to be mindful of Iraqi sovereignty. I measure quick in terms of days, a week or two, something like that, not months."

Gates said he also will ask Turkish leaders in a series of meetings Thursday to address some of the complaints of the Kurds, and move from combat to economic and political initiatives to solve differences with them.

It was the first time that Gates put any time limit on the Turkish incursion launched into Iraq last Thursday against separatist rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. The rebels are fighting for autonomy in the largely Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey, and have carried out attacks from northern Iraq. Overnight, Turkish troops killed more than 70 Kurdish rebels, the Turkish military said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said the operation would only end "once its goal has been reached."

PARIS — Nine European and U.S. consumer products makers, including Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive, are suspected of colluding on prices in France, a report said today.If found guilty, the companies could face fines of up to 10 percent of their annual worldwide revenue — possibly amounting to billions of euros (dollars).The suspected collusion is believed to have begun toward the end of 2004, the report said. Other companies said to be suspected include U.S.-based Sara Lee Corp. and S.C. Johnson & Son, as well as Germany's Henkel KGaA, and Reckitt Benckiser Group, the newspaper said.It said nine companies in all "are suspected of having participated in a vast accord on their prices in France."

MUNICH, Germany — Luxury car maker BMW AG said today it will cut another 5,600 jobs by the end of 2008, on top of 2,500 other positions that have already been eliminated, as it moves to pare expenses amid wider cost-cutting.BMW's head of personnel, Ernst Baumann, said the jobs being cut include 2,500 full-time workers and 2,500 temporary workers, along with 600 other positions in Germany and elsewhere.