The founder of the camp, former Ninevah governor Atheel al Nujaifi, said the Turkish trainers were called in by Iraq’s Prime Minister and defence minister.
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The Iraqi government has called on Turkey to immediately withdraw troops from its territory, calling it “a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty”.
Turkey on Saturday denied that it has expanded its military activities in northern Iraq after Baghdad demanded the withdrawal of forces it says were deployed illegally.
But the statement called on Turkey to “respect good neighbourly relations and to withdraw immediately from the Iraqi territory”. Turkish media reported the deployment was part of a daily turnover with the brand new Turkish troops replacing special forces in that had previously been conducting training for anti-IS forces within the area.
“A battalion of tanks and artillery entered the Iraqi territory, specifically in Nineveh province under the pretext of training Iraqi groups without the request or authorization from the Iraqi federal authorities”, according to Abadi.
Backed by the United States.-led coalition, the Kurdish Peshmerga army and Iraqi government forces have been preparing for an extended military campaign to recapture Mosul from the ISIS extremist group.
“Turkish soldiers have reached the Mosul Bashiqa region”.
About 150 Turkish soldiers have been deployed near the town of Bashiqa to train Iraqi Kurdish forces.
An anonymous Turkish security official told Reuters news agency the troops had been in Iraqi Kurdistan and had moved to Mosul accompanied by armoured vehicles – a move that coalition countries targeting Isil were aware of.
“This camp was established as a training camp for a force of local volunteers fighting terrorism”, he said in a televised speech.
Turkey has also cultivated a close relationship with the Kurdish government and by most accounts, Turkey’s movement of troops into the Mosul area is only an expansion of its current presence in the autonomous Kurdish zone.
The Turkish deployment is just the latest in a series of challenges he faced over the past week that have pushed him to take a hard line on foreign forces helping Iraq against IS, which overran large parts of Iraq a year ago.
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“This is part of the fight against Daesh”, he said, adding that there were around 20 armored vehicles accompanying them as protection.
