MANY CONFLICTING interests have been exposed in Turkey's military land operation against Kurdish militant bases in Iraq. It comes after months of air attacks on these remote, mountainous areas, where they have established a secure presence.
Turkey's armed forces are determined to prevent the PKK organisation from consolidating its position there, despite the caution of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party. In last summer's elections they won most of the Kurdish votes on the basis that this was the best way to restrain any military adventurism. Many military leaders remain unreconciled to Mr Erdogan's moderate Islamic reformism and see this operation as a way to test his resolve. They have been pressing for a more ambitious confrontation with the PKK, and were able to justify this cross-border exercise as necessary to pre-empt a spring offensive when the snows melt in the highly mountainous terrain. It is a near impossible task to defeat a guerrilla movement there without a much larger invasion, creating proportionate dangers of the escalation going out of control.
International pressure on Turkey to restrict the operation was immediate and should continue. Should Turkish troops be drawn further into Iraq this would become a major destabilising factor in the region, as the Iraqi Kurds seek more and more autonomy within that state. Any such development would stimulate similar demands in Turkey, military leaders assume. They do not accept that Mr Erdogan can head that off politically; but after this operation he needs to redouble such efforts. Most of what he needs to do in that respect will anyway suit his political reform agenda of human and minority rights needed to prepare for talks on EU accession.
Yesterday Iraq also warned that the longer the incursion lasts the greater the danger that it may trigger clashes between Turkish troops and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security forces. Mr Erdogan has sought to reassure the Iraqi government, the United States and the EU that this will be a limited operation in scope and timing and he must be held to that promise. The balance of forces in Turkey between political and military leaders is a factor in this affair, a consideration that is just as important in foreign as in domestic policy. But EU leaders also need to be aware of what could be at stake in this region if they are over-critical of Mr Erdogan or intransigently opposed to it eventually joining the Union.