Bush Pledges To Help Turkey Fight Kurds

President George W. Bush on Monday pledged fresh help to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in fighting Kurdish rebels, declaring them "an enemy of Turkey, a free Iraq and the United States."

In an Oval Office session, Bush offered intelligence sharing to help combat the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Bush also said top military figures from the United States and Turkey would be in more regular contact in an effort to track the movement of the guerrilla fighters.

"I made it very clear to the prime minister that we want to work in a close way to deal with this problem," Bush told reporters.

With Turkish troops massed on the border of his country, Erdogan is weighing a major cross-border attack against PKK rebels in northern Iraq. The guerrillas have killed more than 40 Turks in the past month in cross-border raids, and pressure is growing on Erdogan to hit back.

The White House worries a Turkish incursion into Iraq could bring instability to what has been the calmest part of Iraq, and could set a precedent for other countries, such as Iran, that have conflicts with Kurdish rebels.

Yet when asked about the possibility of Turkey attacking Iraq, Bush dismissed the question as hypothetical.

He tried instead to assure Turkey that the United States is providing support.

"It's fine to speculate about what may or may not happen," Bush said. "But nothing can happen until you get good intelligence. We need to know where people are hiding, and we need to know what they're doing."

It is widely thought that the bulk of the PKK forces, which traditionally halts operations in the winter because of supply and logistical difficulties, had scattered as far as southern Iraq, as well as melting into the populations of large cities in the north.

Erdogan said in advance of meeting Bush that he was expecting it to result in "solid steps" from the United States. Their meeting came a day after the PKK released eight soldiers it had been holding for two weeks since their capture in an ambush inside Turkey along the Iraqi border.

Bush noted that Erdogan's government had consulted the United States about getting the soldiers released.

"There is at least one effective measure for people in Turkey to see, that when we work together, we can accomplish important objectives," Bush said.

During a trip to Turkey last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised to redouble efforts against the PKK. But her Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, made clear his government was not satisfied.

"We are at the point where words have been exhausted and where there is need for action," Babacan said Friday.

Turkish leaders have signaled that a decision on what to do about the rebels may hinge on what Erdogan can bring back from Washington to a Turkish public that favors military action in Iraq.

"Rice's visit only raised expectations in Turkey," said Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "If President Bush does not make clear that he is willing to take direct action against the PKK or make the Iraqi Kurds take such action, Erdogan may not be able to resist a military operation."

The PKK, which has fought for autonomy for Turkish Kurds since 1984, is labeled a terrorist group by Europe and the United States. Turkey has complained for years that the United States has not done enough to end PKK activity Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north. The issue has enraged Turks and moved public opinion against the United States.

Mark Parris, a U.S. ambassador to Turkey in the Clinton administration and now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that Monday's meeting would be the last chance for the Bush administration to repair strained relations with Ankara.

"If Erdogan hears something relatively reasonable and concrete you can put this relationship back together," Parris said. "If not, that effort might have to wait for a new administration."

The Bush administration worries that a cross-border incursion would bring instability to what has been the calmest part of Iraq, and could set a precedent for other countries, such as Iran, that have conflicts with Kurdish rebels. For weeks, the Bush administration has stressed the need for a diplomatic solution between Turkey and Iraq.