Neverthless, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad to protest at the deployment of Turkish forces and demanded their immediate withdrawal.
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Turkey has also conducted dozens of air raids in recent months against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group which has bases in Iraq.
The statement said the Turkish troops, accompanied by tanks and weaponry, had entered the country without authorization from Iraqi authorities.
Powerful Iraqi Shiite Muslim armed groups have pledged to fight a planned deployment of USA forces to the country.
Turkish sources said the Turkish troops were deployed to provide training for Iraqi troops near Mosul, a city of more than 1 million people that Islamic State (IS) fighters captured in July 2014.
Davutoglu alleged the camp, located some 30 km (19 miles) northeast of Mosul, was set up at the Mosul governor’s request and in coordination with the Iraqi Defense Ministry.
On Friday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported that about 150 soldiers and some 20 to 25 tanks had arrived in the region. They are there as part of routine training exercises.
President Fuad Masum says Saturday that the move is contributing to increased tensions in the region.
They fresh Turkish troops will be deployed in the Mosul region as well as the Soran and Qalacholan districts near the Iranian border.
A video footage released on the website of Turkey’s Yeni Safak newspaper showed flatbed trucks carrying armored vehicles along a road at night, calling them a convoy accompanying the Turkish soldiers to Bashiqa.
Iraq previously said it rejected any military operation on its soil that isn’t coordinated with the government. Turkey says the departure of President Bashar al-Assad must be part of any long-term solution to the Syrian conflict, and is among a number of foreign states that support rebels fighting his forces. The camp is used by a force called Hashid Watani (national mobilization), which is made up of mainly Sunni Arab former Iraqi police and volunteers from Mosul. A battalion of soldiers has gone there.
The prime minister said he therefore asked the Turkish government to be a good neighbor and refrain from interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs.
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Turkey’s move lends more credence to the notion that its main Iraqi partner in the fight against ISIS isn’t the Iraqi government, but the semi-autonomous Kurdish regions in the country’s north, which have a history of supplying Turkey with much-needed energy.
