ANKARA -- The Turkish Foreign Ministry Wednesday denied local media reports that the country had opened its air space to high-altitude U.S. spy planes operating over neighboring Iraq.

"No, it's not true," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yusuf Buluc told reporters when asked about the report carried by the NTV Television news channel. He declined to elaborate, AFP reported.

NTV had earlier reported that high-altitude U2 spy planes operating out of Germany had flown missions over Iraq by way of Turkey, but had been refused permission to land in Turkey.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, U2 spy planes operated out of Incirlik, a Turkish air base in the south of the country which today is home to U.S. and British warplanes patrolling a U.S.- and British-declared "no fly" zone over northern Iraq.

In the late 1950s, U2 spy planes also operated out of Incirlik for spying missions over what was then the Soviet Union. One of the pilots based there, Francis Gary Powers, was shot down by Soviet missiles in May 1960, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Moscow and Washington.

Unarmed U2 planes currently also carry out reconnaissance missions over Iraq from bases in Kuwait and in the United Arab Emirates, according to U.S. news reports.

The United States has lost three slow-flying unmanned spy drones over southern Iraq, including one shot down in late December.

U2s soar at over 21,000 meters (70,000 feet), more than twice as high as the predator drones, and at speeds far in excess of those reached by the smaller, propeller-driven drones.

The U2 planes are best at scanning fixed installations and allow for much greater time over sites compared to spy satellites which can only take a few minutes' worth of pictures each day.