Perspective: Will Turkey attack in Iraq?

Kurd separatist fighters in Iraq

Ankara is thinking aloud about a possible military intervention in northern Iraq. As the Kurdish population consolidates its hold on oil-rich Kirkuk, the Turkish government worries about increased sectarian violence among the separatist PKK.

The confidential report on strategic threats to the Turkish nation issued by Turkey's National Intelligence Service (MIT) bore a simple title: "Iraq, Terror, Kirkuk and the PKK." Copies of the explosive document were already lying on the desks of the Turkish president and of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the beginning of the new year.

And it is explicit about the threats facing Turkey -- especially the one posed by Iraq. Kurdish PKK militias have withdrawn to the northern part of Turkey's neighbor to the south, and the region's Kurdish population already enjoys far-reaching autonomy. Were Iraq to break apart, Ankara would suddenly be faced with a Kurdish state as a neighbor, a situation, the report makes clear, which could incite Kurdish separatists in south-eastern Turkey to continue their fight for independence.

Kurds are already attempting to alter the demography of the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk in their favor, the document warns.

Read the rest at Der Spiegel