Pressure on Turkey to crush PKK may hurt U.S., EU ties

By Ibon Villelabeitia - Analysis

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey faces increasing pressure at home after Friday's deadly ambush to launch a major offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq that would hurt its ties with Washington and the European Union, analysts say.

Tapping into widespread indignation and nationalism sparked by the attack that killed at least 15 Turkish soldiers, newspaper Vatan's front-page headline said, "Enough is enough!," along with photos of the dead soldiers.

Turkish television stations on Sunday broadcast live the soldiers' funerals, with tens of thousands of mourners across the country waving Turkish flags.

In the worst single attack on the military in a year, rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Friday raided a military outpost in a region in southeast Turkey bordering Iraq. Twenty soldiers were wounded and two more are still missing.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the powerful military have vowed to step up operations to crush the PKK, which was been weakened by Turkish warplane strikes in their bases in northern Iraq.

But analysts said the attack puts the government in a difficult position as it faces calls to strike back at the PKK but must be careful not to alienate its allies with any large-scale response.

NATO-member Turkey has attacked PKK bases in northern Iraq several times in the past 12 months but has confined itself to shelling and air strikes since a brief land offensive in February, which Ankara cut short under U.S. pressure.

Washington and the EU, which Ankara hopes to join, are concerned that prolonged Turkish military operations inside Iraq could further destabilize Iraq and the wider region.

"HIJACK TURKISH POLITICS"

Hugh Pope, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the attack appeared timed to "hijack Turkish politics" as the country tries to put behind it a power struggle between the secularist establishment and the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and focus instead on pushing ahead with EU reforms.

"The PKK thrives on polarization," said Pope, who has written several books on Turkey.

"The PKK is trying to tempt the military into carrying out a major incursion into northern Iraq, which would put pressure on U.S.-Turkey relations and bring it criticism from the European Union," Pope said.

"EU reforms to grant more rights to Kurds make the PKK irrelevant. The government must be careful and not fall into this knee-jerk and nationalistic reaction from newspapers."

Analysts said the attack was similar to one in October last year, when PKK rebels killed 13 soldiers. That attack was seen as the catalyst for the February offensive, which strained ties between Ankara and Baghdad and rattled Turkish markets.

Parliament next week is scheduled to approve a new mandate to launch military operations against the PKK in Iraq as needed. The current mandate expires on October 17.