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For the same reason they just refused to allow US Land Troops to launch an offensive from Turkey. They do not want the Kurds to live freely or to have even a hint of autonomy. The Turkey/Kurdish issue was one of the items cited as to why President Bush applied the brakes. That along with upsetting the Arab members within the coalition. Now hindsight is 20-20, but those two concerns are why Saddam was left in power. You should never leave a madman like that in power. In this case he plotted revenge and logistically supported anti-western terrorism. Not to mention his attacks on the Shiites and the Kurds

"They do not want the Kurds to live freely or to have even a hint of autonomy."

Marxist Kurdish revolutionaries in Northeren Iraq have killed tens of thousands of Turks. They claim about a third of Anatolia. Allowing them to establish a power base is very ill advised.

They do not want the Kurds to live freely or to have even a hint of autonomy.

A lot of Turks are part Kurd. There are a lot of Kurds who immigrated to Turkey. In '91, Turkey had a Kurd as president (remember him?).

It's complex, not just Kurd vs. Turk. The more radical Kurds in Iraq perceive that everybody is indifferent to their fate and that they need their own country for security. And they see the oil around the ancient Kurd "capital", Kirkuk, as the finance to make it possible. If they could establish a Kurdistan (Turkey's main fear), they could try to reclaim the land their tribes used to run on in large portions of Iran and in Turkey.

It's just not a simple situation ethnically and there really is no good solution at this point. And we can't fight any wars to change the ancient history of these people. Where would we stop?

The Kurds belong in a secure autonomous zone in northern Iraq, in confederation with Shiite and Sunni zones, all under a federal system in Baghdad. We've guaranteed to preserve the boundaries of Iraq and that's what we'll do. There will be no regional disintegration, no Kurdistan. No dinky little radical countries that can't defend themselves and become hotbeds of Islamic fundamentalism.