The PKK, estimated to have 5,000 fighters, could benefit politically from an Iraq campaign by claiming to be the champion of all Kurds in the face of an invader with a history of human rights abuses. Fighting could shift attention from moderate Kurds who have responded at the polls to the Turkish ruling party's pledges of better conditions and economic support.

"Turkey has played it badly," said James Brandon, a London-based analyst who visited the PKK's main base at Mount Qandil in northern Iraq last year. "The thing to do is to ignore the guys in Iraqi Kurdistan."

Turkey's military said it will wait for a decision on what to do when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan returns from a Nov. 5 meeting in Washington with President Bush, who has urged Turkey to act with restraint.

Even if Turkey's alliances fray, the PKK is unlikely to win international recognition and status as the sole representative of Turkish Kurd aspirations because of its track record of bombings and assassinations.