Iraq has called on Turkey to immediately withdrawal Turkish troops operating in the country’s north, saying the deployment was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, the prime minister’s office said on Saturday.
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The Iraqi government, however, has demanded that Ankara withdraw the more than 100 Turkish forces that entered Iraq with tanks and artillery for allegedly “training” of troops near Mosul. On the contrary, it deployed about 150 troops to northern Iraq to replace its current unit, Turkish military sources told the country’s semi-official Anadolu Agency on Friday.
Baghdad has been aware of Turkey’s presence but chose to publicly challenge it only now – underscoring, analysts say, the increasing pressure Mr. Abadi is facing from Iran and its proxies, including Iraq’s former prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
Hundreds of Turkish troops are now stationed near Mosul, one of the key cities held by the “Islamic State” (IS) group, according to the authorities in Baghdad. A battalion of soldiers has gone there.
Turkey has other camps in Iraq but they are inside the official borders of the autonomous Kurdish region. Powerful Iraqi Shiite Muslim armed groups have pledged to fight any deployment of US forces to the country.
The Kurdish regional government – which has forces in the area where the Turkish troops deployed and close ties with Ankara – indicated that Turkey aimed to expand the camp.
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. Turkey has in recent months been bombing Kurdish militant positions in northern Iraq.
He added further Iraq does not need foreign ground combat troops.
Mosul is the principal domain of the IS in northern Iraq, and the Iraqi army has been unable to regain control of it despite often promising the city’s inhabitants that it would “liberate them” from the jihadists.
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“For many, this will be viewed as an attempt to break up the Iraqi state”, Aaron Stein, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, said by e-mail on Sunday.
