Iraq’s Ambassador to the UN, Mohamed Alhakim, said talks with Turkey are going “extremely well”.
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“Our presence (near) Mosul will continue as part of the training programme”, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara.
Turkey called on its citizens to leave all areas of Iraq except the three-province autonomous Kurdish region in the north, with which Ankara has close ties.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday that the Turkish soldiers were dispatched to Iraq after a threat from Islamic State militants to Turkish military trainers in the area increased and the deployment was an act of solidarity, not aggression.
Earlier, the Turkish military said it has carried out aerial raids on suspected Kurdish rebel sites in a new cross-border offensive in northern Iraq.
Dolgov said that he remains downbeat about the UN slapping sanctions against Turkey, given that Ankara is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member supported by the United States. The Iraqi government says it never invited such a force.
The deployment of Turkish troops dates back to 2002 and the additional troops were deployed in 2014 in response to a request from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi, Erdogan told a press conference.
Kurtulmus said the “exaggeration” of the issue in Turkish public opinion and the media had triggered sensitivities in the Iraqi government.
According to Ankara, the contingent s arrival in northern Iraq was “a normal rotation” and not an illegal incursion or the advance party for an invasion.
In its travel warning, Ankara cited increasing threats targeting Turkish companies recently, as well as declarations encouraging violence, abduction and attacks.
“Turkey’s decision to deploy its troops to Iraq and reluctance to withdraw them even after the Iraqi government’s demands is a flagrant violation of United Nations law and global norms as such”, Dolgov said.
He who believes that the sudden outburst of the Iraqi government, a first of its kind since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, is against the presence of Turkish troops on Iraqi soil is wrong.
“We have not yet escalated it to the Security Council”, he said.
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On 25 October, Iraqi military forces with the support of Shiite militia and backed by airstrikes carried out by the anti-Daesh coalition led by the U.S., have retaken the oil refinery at Baiji in Northern Iraq which was under the Daesh control. With this latest deployment, the number of Turkish troops in Iraq has reached about 3,000.
