"TACTICAL MOVE"
"They (the government) want to keep up the pressure. If you let go, both the Americans and the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq may relax their positions. It is a tactical move," said Dogu Ergil, a professor at Ankara University.
"Intelligence reports show about 2,000 of the rebels have passed into Iran and a further 1,000 into Turkey, leaving only about 500 or so in caves in the Qandil mountains (of northern Iraq). This is not worth a major military operation," he said.
Weather conditions are also rapidly worsening, further hampering the likely effectiveness of military action.
But analysts said it would be wrong to think the Turks were only bluffing. Another deadly PKK attack inside Turkey could prove the tipping point.
"Erdogan's words show the Turks do mean business this time. They are serious. They will not be satisfied with just promises from the Americans and Iraq," said Wolfango Piccoli, a Turkey expert at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.
Erdogan held emergency talks with Bush on November 5 in the White House, wringing from him pledges of closer cooperation, including more intelligence sharing against a group Washington also brands as terrorist.
Three top U.S. generals have visited Ankara in the past 10 days to discuss intelligence sharing with the Turkish military.
Northern Iraqi Kurdish authorities have also taken steps to stop supplies reaching the PKK rebels in the mountains.
But government ministers repeated again this week that they expected more concrete action from U.S. and Iraqi forces against the PKK, blamed by Ankara for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since the group began its armed separatist insurgency in 1984.
