Turkey’s decision to send ground forces into northern Iraq, its biggest incursion into the Kurdish territories across its border for a decade, may be an understandable response to the reviving campaign by rebel separatists hiding there. But it is the last thing an Iraq trying to claw itself back from the precipice needs.

The palpable improvement in the security situation in Iraq over the past year is fragile and uneven. Any destabilisation of Iraqi Kurdistan, the only relatively calm area of the country, could put paid to what is only a small chance that improvement can be turned into a political settlement enabling Iraqis to live together in peace.