Bush tries to avert Turkish move into Iraq

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, facing Turkish threats of a military incursion into Iraq to root out Kurdish rebels, will assure Turkey's prime minister on Monday he is committed to helping to combat the militants.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who will meet with Bush at the White House, has made clear that he wants concrete action to counter the Kurdish rebels who have been launching attacks on Turkey from Iraqi soil.

If Erdogan walks away from the meeting dissatisfied, there could be major repercussions for Bush's effort to stabilize Iraq where he has lately been touting progress.

Turkey, a NATO member with the alliance's second-biggest army, has sent up to 100,000 troops to the Iraqi border, backed by tanks, artillery and aircraft.

Ankara has said it may take cross-border action soon. The White House, fearing such action could destabilize the wider region, has been urging Turkey to refrain from a major operation in an area of Iraq that has so far escaped the violence plaguing other parts of the country.

Turkish officials have portrayed the meeting between Bush and Erdogan as a last chance effort to avert a military strike.

"Bush is going to have to offer something," said Bulent Aliriza, an expert on Turkey at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This is an unusual situation. Most of the time, these meetings are very carefully choreographed ahead of time."

But Aliriza said an attempt by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to lay the groundwork for the meeting during a weekend trip to Istanbul appeared to do little to satisfy Ankara's demands for concrete steps.