ISTANBUL, TURKEY — The Turkish government is coming under enormous domestic pressure to crush Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, but even as rebel positions are shelled and tens of thousands of troops moved to the border, leaders are reluctant to invade, fearing international isolation and a military quagmire.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would prefer to avoid a full-scale invasion, according to people familiar with his thinking, and is pursuing diplomatic options. His government is also considering using economic leverage by rerouting valuable trade away from Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan region, where the Turkish Kurd rebels have found safe harbor.
On Friday, Turkey warned that its "patience has run out" and demanded that Iraq extradite rebel leaders.
Erdogan and his government want to show they are exhausting diplomatic options while waving the military threat, the sources say, because they expect international scorn if Turkey is seen as having opened a battlefront in the only relatively peaceful part of Iraq.
"You can lessen the public pressure with an all-out invasion, but it would be a short-term gain," Turkish military expert Lale Sariibrahimoglu said. "The government and the armed forces are well aware of the repercussions. This is a serious test of democracy and diplomacy."
Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, Turkey's top military commander, was quoted Friday by private broadcaster NTV as saying that the government would wait until Erdogan returns from a Nov. 5 visit with President Bush before deciding whether to launch a military offensive into Iraq.
An invasion also risks dragging Turkey into a quagmire that would play into the hands of Turkish nationalists keen to undermine the pro-Islamic government. Some of the loudest war drums are being beaten by extreme nationalists with a certain sway in parliament and who would no doubt raise their voices further if a military effort proved ineffective.
And experience makes it clear that swift success is by no means guaranteed.
The separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, survived repeated attacks by Turkey in the 1990s, its members hiding safely in the rugged mountain terrain on the Iraqi side of the border. And with winter coming, the chances of a decisive Turkish victory are even bleaker.
