By Kristin Roberts

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - U.S. efforts to stop Kurdish militants in Iraq from attacking Turkey have been meager and unsuccessful, increasing the chances of a retaliatory strike from Ankara, according to some U.S. officials and analysts.

The Bush administration has focused on diplomacy to ease tensions along the border between Turkey and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, used by Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK militants as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.

The U.S. Treasury Department has targeted PKK fund flows through Europe as well.

But U.S. officials concede too little has been done to aid Turkey, an important ally for Washington in the Muslim world. Current efforts have failed to curb attacks linked to the PKK and have not eased Ankara's threats to strike inside Iraq's Kurdish area or stopped it from massing tens of thousands of troops along the border.

"I'm afraid they're getting themselves worked up into a position where they can't back down from the statements that they have made," a U.S. official said of Turkey.

What is missing, according to both Turkish and U.S. officials, is a visible U.S. military response -- something unlikely to materialize while troops are focused on intense fighting elsewhere in Iraq.

"It simply is the physical difficulty of cracking down and our inability to pull the forces needed to do this away from the other tasks in Iraq, which are legion," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

For the Turks, the lack of military action coupled with the Bush administration's public admonition against a Turkish invasion smack of hypocrisy.

"We're ceding the battlefield of legitimacy over the PKK," said Michael Rubin, an analyst with the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank, arguing the PKK is not being treated like a terrorist group despite carrying that label in Washington.

That, according to Rubin, leads Muslim Turkey to question whether the U.S.-declared war on terror is actually a war on Islam, he said.

CAMPAIGN RHETORIC?

The PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic Kurdish homeland. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

This year, more than 200 Turkish soldiers and PKK rebels have been killed, according to a Turkish human rights group.

Those deaths have been front-page news in Turkey and opposition parties have made security in the face of increased PKK attacks a campaign issue ahead of Sunday's parliamentary elections.

Some U.S. officials attribute bellicose statements from Ankara to the election and say the threats of a cross-border operation into Iraq may disappear by Monday.

Turkey's ambassador in Washington, Nabi Sensoy, indicated earlier this month that Turkish officials needed some action from Washington they could shop to an angry domestic audience. But he dismissed suggestions that politicians' heated response to PKK activity was simply campaign rhetoric.

"It's not only because we are running a campaign now before the elections of the 22nd, it's not only that. We've come to the point really when everybody feels that the patience of Turkey is running out," Sensoy said.

Rubin said, "The chances of a cross-border operation increase to 80 percent after the election." (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed)

AlertNet news is provided by