IRAQ - The Oct. 21 Attack & Regional Implications.

PKK's Oct. 21 attack caused Armagan Kuloglu, a retired Turkish general, to express the public mood: "With this incident, the arrow has left the bow, and no room is left for the government to...fail to launch a cross-border operation". Erdogan then held an emergency NSC meeting headed by President Abdullah Gul. The subsequent communique stressed: "We will not hesitate to pay the price, no matter how high, to protect our citizens. We will show no tolerance...with those who support and help terrorism".

The Turkish parliament on Oct. 17 gave a year for the armed forces to pursue PKK guerrillas in Iraq's Qandil mountains. The Oct. 21 attack took place after the rebels moved into Turkey and hit soldiers in the town of Hakkari, about 40 km from the border.

The killing of Turkish troops ran contrary to a message sent by Mas'oud Barzani, president of Iraqi Kurdistan, to Ankara less than 24 hours earlier, calling for dialogue to avert a military showdown. But the Erdogan government refused to meet the PKK, saying it was a "terrorist organisation" and called on the US and Iraq to get it to lay down its arms. Barzani added: "We are not going to be caught up in a PKK-Turkish war". Echoing Barzani was Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, who told Le Figaro he had advised the PKK "it should now understand that the world has changed and that the era of Che Guevaras is over". He added: "I am telling the PKK to go to Turkey and join discussions in parliament".

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, another Kurd, added to the mixed signals by saying: "...[The PKK] is not present with the approval of the Iraqi government or the government of the Kurdish region. The Iraqi government has asked them and other military groups to leave Iraq...Our formal request is that they leave Iraqi soil and leave Iraq for its people and do not bring us more problems than we're already suffering. Kurdistan is a stable area and it is not in the interests of any party, or any side, to threaten its stability". Asked if the government was giving the PKK a timetable to leave, Zebari said: "As soon as possible".

The Kurdish leaders insist, and so does the US, that the PKK operates from northern Iraq on its own, with no mandate from Kurdish decision-makers, the Iraqi government or the US. Speaking at a news conference with Barzani on Oct. 21, Talabani said all Turkish requests to arrest or extradite PKK leaders were "a dream that will never be fulfilled". Earlier, he had bitterly criticised Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for having backed Turkey's war plan.

Turkey had been one of America's best friends in the East. In the 1950s, it actively contributed to the containment of communism and the alliance between Washington and Ankara lasted long after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Then came the victory of Erdogan's neo-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in early November 2002, followed by the war on Iraq, which Erdogan opposed from the onset. Relations soured after the Turks refused to grant the US passage rights over Turkey to launch its war on Iraq.

The Turks want reward for all they gave during the Cold War: crushing the PKK. The US, immersed in fighting Neo-Salafi insurgents and Shi'ite militias in Iraq, turned a blind eye to the PKK - though it considers it terrorist. The US will not abandon Barzani and Talabani, as they are some of the few leaders in Iraq who remain co-operative, and risk havoc in Kurdistan. As a result, anti-Americanism in Turkey has grown. A recent Pew Global Trend survey showed that 91% of Turks did not trust the US.

The Turks wonder why the US has been so passive. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation says an attack on any member-state would be considered an attack on all of them, calling for collective defence. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, and since then Article 5 has only been implemented once, after 9/11, when it came to defending American security. The Turks claim the PKK is to them what al-Qaeda is to America.

By taking a tough stance against the PKK, Erdogan brings disgruntled Kemalists under his wing. But the officers still have suspicions that Erdogan has a hidden Islamic agenda. Signals coming out of his office have been badly received by the military. The fact that his wife is veiled, that he has improved relations with Hamas, Iran and Syria, and that his party has an Islamic programme all have sent alarms ringing in the Turkish army.

The Turkish military have staged four coups d'etat: in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. They were seemingly on alert to do it again earlier in 2007. Justice Minister Cemil Cicek has recently denounced renewed threats and declared that, according to the constitution, "the army is subordinate to the prime minister", adding that in a democratic state, it was "inconceivable" that the general staff sets itself against the government.

In addition to anger at what the PKK is doing, Turkey is opposed to the very essence of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurds (including the PKK) want to create a Kurdish state out of south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Iraq, northern Syria (where they call for "Western Kurdistan" stretching to Aleppo), and north-western Iran. They now have their eyes set on oil-rich Kirkuk, which has a reserve of 10 bn barrels. They plan on annexing it to Kurdistan. If given to the Kurds, with its 1m b/d capacity, Kirkuk would add huge political and financial wealth to Iraqi Kurds, which in turn would threaten neighbouring Turkey, Iran and Syria.

The PKK attacks have emboldened the electorally defeated Kemalists and put the army back on the front foot after setbacks in its cold war with Erdogan's AKP. And the PKK attempt to revive the insurgency in the south-east, the heartland of Turkey's 16m Kurds, came just as Ankara's alliance with Washington was nearing breaking point.

Turkey is the main supply route for US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ankara says it will end all military co-operation if the Congress passes the bill defining as genocide the Ottoman massacres of 1.5m Armenians in 1915-17. The often justified perception in Turkey of EU bad faith in its accession negotiations adds to the feeling of a beleaguered nation.

Erdogan has made modest but tangible progress reconciling Turkey's Kurdish minority, which will be vapourised by war with the PKK. But the previous incursions of Turkish troops failed to dislodge the PKK from the Qandil mountains.