In one of its biggest operations against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the army hit hard Sunday against rebel camps in the mountains of northern Iraq with pre-dawn air and artillery strikes.

The raids were followed by a small-scale incursion early Monday involving 500 to 700 commandos, according to the Turkish press.

It was the first ground assault since parliament authorised the government in October to order cross-border operations.

Turkish generals have said more operations may follow despite the harsh winter conditions in the region.

"Turkey has been building up to this by creating an expectation among its people and they also had to let the PKK know that they were prepared to take action," Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former special representative in Baghdad, told AFP in London.

"If they had not acted, the PKK would have been bolder," he said.

But analysts say military action in northern Iraq will only hamper and not eradicate the PKK.

In a report released Wednesday, Chatham House, a London-based think-tank, said Turkey could probably never defeat the rebels.

"The PKK is a well-motivated force that enjoys local support and the protection afforded by the inaccessible terrain of the border regions," said the report.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government is well aware that arms alone will not quell a movement that has been fighting since 1984 for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey -- a conflict that has killed more than 37,000 people.

Erdogan has said that the government is considering extending the scope of an existing law that allows PKK rebels who surrender and turn informant to escape without prosecution or with reduced sentences.

Economy Minister Mehmet Simsek, himself a Kurd, announced at the weekend that Ankara could also introduce projects aiming to improve the welfare of the Kurdish community through investment incentives and subsidies.

"If this is successful, it would constitute a serious step forward in the Kurdish issue and a real psychological challenge for the PKK," Beril Dedeoglu, a Middle East expert from Istanbul's Galatasaray University, wrote in the English-language daily Today's Zaman.

Political analyst Dogu Ergil said the government's stance was a welcome shift from past policies when Kurdish demands for equality were seen as tantamount to "separatism."

"Erdogan seems to have grasped the fact that without solving the Kurdish problem, neither political stability nor the fortunes of his party will be sustainable" Ergil said.

The chief of the Turkish General Staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, has also made it clear that military means alone will not resolve the conflict.

"The fight against terrorism calls for not only military, but also economic, cultural and social measures," he said in an article published in May.

"Even the hawkish armed forces seem to have realized that the Kurds have a genuine inclusion and integration problem. Now it is time for reconciliation and reconstruction," Ergil said.

Under pressure from the European Union, Ankara has in recent years granted the Kurds certain cultural freedoms, such as radio and television broadcasts in Kurdish and Kurdish-language private schools, but activists say the reforms are inadequate.

Carina O'Reilly, the European editor of Jane's Country Risk, published by the London-based strategy and defence analysts, said the current government in Ankara was more likely "than any other in recent times" to improve the lot of the Kurds.

"Most Kurds want improvements in their leaving conditions and a measure of self-determination, but there is not a homogenous desire for independence," O'Reilly said.

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