BEIRUT ?Turkey's prime minister warned Thursday that Ankara would not allow a Kurdish "terrorist organization" to operate from northern Syria, in the latest illustration of how the Syrian conflict is spilling over to neighboring nations.
"There can be no question of us permitting a terrorist organization to set up camp in northern Syria," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned, according to the official Anatolian news agency. "No one should attempt to provoke us."
The stern comments followed reports that a Kurdish political faction affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, had seized territory in northeastern Syria and had even raised its flag in several towns. The Turkish government considers the PKK a terrorist group and has waged a bloody, decades-long war against it in southeastern Turkey, where the PKK is fighting for self-rule.
The Kurds reportedly moved into as many as five towns after Syrian troops redeployed to the capital, Damascus, which is under siege by rebel forces seeking to oust President Bashar Assad.
However, there were some indications that the reports of Kurdish control in the area were exaggerated. Several Syrian Kurdish activists said Syrian security forces remained throughout much of the region, including the major city, Qamishli, along the Turkish frontier.
Turkey's Daily Zaman newspaper reported that Turkish officials had initially downplayed reports of Kurds seizing Syrian towns as "isolated cases." But the prime minister emerged from a security meeting Thursday saying Turkey was determined to counter any PKK gains in Syria. Erdogan did not rule out military intervention.
"We will not fall for the game of provocation, but if a step needs to be taken against the terrorist organization, we will absolutely take this step," Erdogan told reporters before heading to London to attend the Olympic Games.
Turkey has on many occasions sent forces into the semiautonomous, Kurdish-run northern zone of Iraq to attack what it describes as PKK havens.
Kurds reside across a broad swath of the Middle East, including the nations of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The group has maintained its identity despite its minority status and the attempts to repress the Kurdish language and culture. In Syria, Kurds have long pressed for full citizenship rights and some measure of autonomy.
The Turkish prime minister's saber rattling pointed to yet another example of how the Syrian uprising is causing tremors throughout the region. Turkey has labeled Assad "a bloody dictator" and demanded that he resign. Relations between the two former allied nations have plummeted to new lows.
Turkey has already boosted its forces along the border with Syria after an incident last month in which a Turkish fighter plane was shot down by Syrian forces over the eastern Mediterranean. Ankara has warned Syria that it would respond forcefully to any military move along the nations' more-than-500-mile-long border.
At the same time, Turkey has been turning a blind eye to Syrian rebels openly using Turkey's southern Hatay province as a base for operations against the Syrian government. Syria has accused Turkey of arming the rebels, an accusation rejected by Ankara.
More than 40,000 Syrian refugees have fled to Turkey. Many live in camps that dot the Turkish-Syrian border region. They are among more than 200,000 refugees who have fled Syria for neighboring nations ? including Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq as well as Turkey ? since the uprising against the Syrian government began more than 16 months ago.
All of Syria's neighbors are feeling the effects of the unrest. Rebels have seized posts along Syria's border with Turkey and Iraq. Incidents of cross-border shootings, shelling and reports of kidnappings have occurred along Syria's tense boundary with Lebanon.
Kurds inside Syria, who account for at least 10% of the overall population, have mostly been on the sidelines during the fighting against Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.
Many Kurds, like members of other Syrian minorities, fear an Islamist takeover if Assad is overthrown. The Assad government has fiercely repressed free speech and denied political liberty, but it has been relatively tolerant of religious and ethnic minorities.
The PKK and its Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party, are reported to have maintained relatively close ties to the Assad government.
However, Syria's Kurdish population is deeply divided.
Some Kurds have pledged allegiance to the uprising against Assad. A number of large-scale anti-Assad protests have taken place in Syria's Kurdish region. And at least two Kurdish battalions are said to be fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel umbrella group. YouTube video of the two Kurdish rebel bands show them waving the Syrian flag and the Kurdish banner.
Aleppo, the northern Syrian city now under partial rebel control, has a substantial Kurdish population.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was planning to meet with officials from Iraq's Kurdish regional government next week to defuse tensions. Turkey's top diplomat planned to inform Kurdish leaders about Ankara's deep concern over the possible emergence of a Kurdish-run region in Syria.
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