The Turks "token incursion" timed to Rice's visit to the Kurds.

(AP) 300 lightly armed Turkish soldiers made a token incursion 1.5 miles into Iraq, not coincidentally (Reuters) timed to match Condi Rice's visit to the Kurdish leaders in Kirkuk, some 120 miles away. (AFP) "The area they entered is a deserted area and there is no Iraqi force or peshmerga deployed there."

The Turks were sending a message,

Sunni Arabs ended a yearlong political boycott earlier this month in Kirkuk... under a deal that sets aside government posts for Arabs. It was the biggest step yet toward unity ahead of a referendum on the area's future.

Rice was highlighting that development, although a separate ethnic group is still boycotting the provincial governing council, and the new role of the United Nations in resolving the future of disputed Kirkuk.

The UN representative is hoping to hold the the Kirkuk referendum by the end of 2008, but such a referendum would require the passage of the Provincial Elections bill (one of the "benchmarks, remember those?) which is still mired in the Iraqi Congress.

And, going back to yesterday's post on the US taking blame for the Turkish actions, the WaPo has a frontpager being sourced to "Pentagon officials."

The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on Sunday, according to Pentagon officials.....

The United States is "essentially handing them their targets," one U.S. military official said. The Turkish military then decides whether to act on the information and notifies the United States, the official said.

Kinda hard to distance from that.