The Next Front; Pressure is building on Ankara to deal more harshly with cross-border terrorist attacks from Iraq.

Byline: Owen Matthews and Sami Kohen

Israel launched airstrikes on Lebanon in response to attacks by Hizbullah earlier this month, and George W. Bush called it "self-defense." But what to tell the Turks, who over the last week lost 15 sol-diers to terror attacks launched by sepa-ratist Kurds from neighboring Iraq? Many Turkish leaders are pressing for cross-border tactical air assaults on the guerrillas. But Bush, fearing yet another escalation of the Middle East's violence, urged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to hold off. "The message was, unilateral action isn't going to be helpful," says a senior U.S. official, describing the 15-minute phone conversation. "The president asked for patience."

And so Turkish forces are holding fast--for now--in deference to their half-century alliance with the United States. But that patience is bound to be challenged, probably sooner than later. Domestic political pressures are building to take a leaf from Israel's book and hit back at the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Work-ers' Party, or PKK. Since the beginning of the year, attacks on Turkish military garrisons and police stations have esca-lated across the country's southeast, along with random shootings, bombings and protests--many of them, authorities suspect, organized in Iraq. Already the Turkish military has laid detailed plans for possible helicopter-and-commando assaults, government sources tell NEWSWEEK. Meanwhile, Ankara's frustration with Washington has grown palpable. For all the Bush administration's repeated promises to crack down on the PKK, little if anything has happened. With elections coming next year, Erdogan could be pardoned for soon concluding that his forbearance might prove politically dangerous. "Moderate, liberal people in Turkey are becoming increasingly anti-American," warns Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. "That isn't good."

Erdogan has built a career on skillfully riding populist waves, and he's not going to miss this one. On the one hand, he recognizes the importance of maintaining good relations with America, if only to foil critics who lambaste him for being too Islamist. On the other, popular anger at the PKK is getting explosive. At the funeral of a murdered soldier in Izmir last week, crowds destroyed wreaths sent by Erdogan's Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu and the city's governor, Oguz Kaan Koksal. Some mourners chanted slogans accusing the government of cooperating with the PKK. And when a group of 60 human-rights activists were arrested in the resort of Kiyikoy on suspicion of being PKK sympathizers last week, locals attacked the detainees with stones and iron bars.

The Turkish press has been baying for action, with even the solidly pro-American Turkish Daily News railing in an editorial that "Turkey is no banana republic that can leave its security to the mercy of others." Another editorial posed the question more directly. "Why is it that Israel has the right to 'self-defense'," the paper asked, "and not Turkey." The country's usually fractious parliamentary opposition, in a rare moment of unity, called for active intervention. "Opposition," says True Path Party leader Mehmet Agar, "ends at Habur"--Turkey's border crossing with Iraq. ...