With a large Kurdish population and a violent separatist movement on its own territory, Ankara is leery about any moves towards independence across the border that might encourage Kurdish nationalists at home.

"It is obvious that this incident constitutes a new step towards Kurdish independence," said Sedat Laciner, a specialist on the region at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Ankara, of the flag ruling.

"Even if they have stepped back from their original position, by provoking the controversy they have succeeded in focusing world attention on their emblem and their independence struggle," he said.

Reaction in Ankara has nonetheless been muted since the president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, Massud Barzani, ordered earlier this month that all offices and government institutions "hoist the flag of Iraqi Kurdistan", though the decree touched off a firestorm of controversy in Iraq itself.

"It is first and foremost the Iraqis that should be worrying about this turn of events," was all that Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul would say in a comment broadcast on television.

A Turkish diplomat who asked not to be identified expanded on the minister's statement: "The Iraqis must understand how dangerous it is for the unity of their country to play with the national emblem."

Kurds in northern Iraq, recently unified under a single leadership, already enjoy quasi-independence under the protective umbrella of the United States, much to the chagrin of Ankara, Laciner said.

Making a point of flying Kurdistan's red, white and green banner emblazoned with a golden sun motif, he added, is simply another part of their separatist campaign.

In Laciner's view, Iraqi Kurds will never openly declare independence for fear of provoking strong reactions from the governments of neighboring countries -- Turkey, Iran and Syria -- who worry that such a step could stir unrest among their own Kurdish minorities.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms to fight for self-rule in the majority-Kurdish southeast.

Despite its misgivings, Ankara opened up its borders in 1991 to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds fleeing Saddam Hussein's pogrom following the first Gulf War.

Until the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkey had always considered northern Iraq to be part of its backyard. Baghdad's grip on the region was tenuous.

Turkish forces frequently carried out cross-border raids against members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party fleeing from Turkey into Iraq.

Recently, Ankara has seemed even more preoccupied by Iraqi Kurds' alleged ambition to incorporate the strategic oil city of Kirkuk within their autonomous zone, fearing it could become the capital of an oil-rich independent Kurdistan.

"We have to be very careful about what is happening there," said the chief-of-staff of Turkey's army, General Ilker Basbug.

Speaking to journalists in Ankara, the general underlined what he described as Kurdish designs on Kirkuk, and repeated Ankara's position that the defense of the city's ethnic Turk minority was a non-negotiable issue.

Ultra-nationalists in Turkey have called for military intervention in northern Iraq to secure the city, but the government has avoided evoking the possibility since such action could put Turkey on a collision course with fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member the United States.

Iraq's Kurdish minority has enjoyed substantial autonomy since Baghdad's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait and strongly supported the 2003 US-led invasion that unseated Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Since Saddam's fall, Kurdish politicians have taken part in national politics and put their historic demands for independence on hold. But continuing violence -- such as a bomb blast Tuesday that killed 10 people in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's Kurdish southeast -- keeps separatist tensions high.