Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to support any Turkish military incursion in Iraq against Kurdish rebel bases there after a deadly suicide bombing in Ankara blamed on the militants.  

Upping the pressure on its southern neighbour, Ankara urged Baghdad Thursday to act against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) holed up in in northern Iraq.

“We expect urgent and resolute measures,” foreign ministry spokesman Levent Bilman told reporters shortly after reports of more violence with a landmine explosion attributed to the PKK killing six soldiers in the southeast.

Erdogan said late Wednesday his government would secure parliamentary authorisation if the army sought to conduct a cross-border operation targeting PKK bases.

“It is out of the question for us to disagree on this issue with our… soldiers,” he told the private ATV network. “When the time comes, we will take the necessary step, there will be no delay.” ~AFP

During the war in Lebanon last summer, I and others had remarked on the rather stark contradiction between the standard pro-Israel propaganda about opposition to “a state within a state” in Lebanon and the complete indifference of Washington and pundits to the “state within a state” in northern Iraq.  These “states within a state” both promote and shelter insurgent groups that commit acts of terrorism against U.S.-allied states, but apparently some terrorists are less objectionable than others.