March 12, 2008 | By SABRINA TAVERNISE

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s government is planning a broad series of investments worth as much as $12 billion in the country’s largely Kurdish southeast, in a new economic effort intended to create jobs and draw young men away from militancy, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

The program is intended to drain support for the militant Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, by improving the lives of Turkey’s impoverished Kurdish minority, Mr. Erdogan said in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday.

As part of the push, the government will dedicate a state television channel to Kurdish language broadcasting, a measure that Kurds in Turkey have sought for years. The Turkish state has imposed severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish, arguing that allowing that freedom would strengthen the Kurds’ desire to form a separate state.

Turkey, a vibrant Muslim democracy and a strong American ally, has for years fought the militant group, known as the P.K.K., which hides in Turkey and Iraq and seeks greater autonomy for Kurds in Turkey.

That fight has put it at odds with the United States, whose strongest allies in the war in Iraq are Kurds. But after an ambush of Turkish troops last fall, and subsequent lobbying by Mr. Erdogan and the Turkish military, the Bush administration agreed to let Turkey strike at the group inside Iraq, opening up airspace there and even offering intelligence.

“Turkey is not a guest,” said Mr. Erdogan, 54, sitting in a cream-colored high-backed chair in his official residence in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. “Everyone who has entered Iraq until now will stay for a while and go away, but we will stay.”

“We are the most important door for northern Iraq to open up to the world,” he added. “We are the healthiest door.”

Last month, Turkey conducted an eight-day ground offensive into Iraq, and Mr. Erdogan said that the United States had been fully behind it.

“I can openly and freely say that this short process has been done with the total understanding of Turkey, the United States and the central government of Iraq,” he said.

“But the fight against terrorism is not only this,” he added. “It also has a socioeconomic part, a psychological part, a cultural part.”

Mr. Erdogan was the first public figure to speak openly about Turkey’s troubles with its Kurdish population in a speech several years ago that won him a measure of respect among Turkey’s approximately 12 million Kurds, about a sixth of its population. Kurds voted in large numbers for his political party in a national election last July. Since then, many say his efforts have stalled, replaced by frequent military operations just over the border.

Mr. Erdogan sought to allay Kurds’ fears Tuesday, emphasizing Turkey’s efforts to engage them on both sides of the border. Turkey has chosen not to negotiate directly with the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, led by Massoud Barzani, despite the fact that many of the militants it is chasing hide in that territory. Mr. Erdogan added, however, that informal contacts had been made with the area’s representatives.

“We have relatives in northern Iraq,” he said. “And people living there have relatives in our southeastern region. With whom will we have good relations other than with ourselves?”

Efforts to improve relations with Iraq include plans to open a consulate in the southern city of Basra, Mr. Erdogan said. Turkey has an embassy in Baghdad and a consulate in Mosul, a major city in the north.

Mr. Erdogan is still identifying funds for the economic effort, which was started years ago by a previous administration but languished. The state will invest between $11 billion and $12 billion over five years to build two large dams and a system of water canals, complete paved roads and remove land mines from the fields along the Syrian border, he said.

Plans for the project will be completed within two months, he said, at which point construction on the two dams will begin. He said he had dedicated one of his deputy prime ministers to visit cities across the largely Kurdish southeast to work on it.

“Everything we can see in the western part of the country we can see in the east,” he said.

The television channel will also include Persian and Arabic, Mr. Erdogan said, and should be running in several months. “This will be the most important step providing cultural rights to the region,” he said.

Turkey, a member of NATO, has ambitions to join the European Union, though Mr. Erdogan has recently come under criticism for allowing the required democratic and economic retooling needed for membership to drop from the agenda.

“There is no stalling or slowing down,” he said. “We are determined.”

A social security law required to meet European standards will be submitted to Parliament in the next two to three weeks, he said, and a long-awaited revision of a law that limits freedom of speech is nearly ready. At every weekly cabinet meeting, one of the topics is Turkey’s European bid, and each ministry is working on it.

“There is no alternative for us other than full membership,” Mr. Erdogan said.

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.