The peshmerga in particular have been a consistent adversary against the Islamic State in Iraq.
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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, who is president of the Security Council for December, said Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim delivered a letter on Friday, but no request had been made for a council meeting on the issue.
Iraq demands the UN Security Council “to shoulder its responsibilities and orders Turkey to withdraw its troops immediately, and to ensure unconditionally withdrawal to the internationally recognized border between the two countries”, the statement said.
Meanwhile, a senior Iraqi politician said that Turkey is plotting to create a Sunni-dominated region in Iraq and Syria by deploying forces to Mosul.
Harith al-Qarawee, an Iraq researcher at Brandeis University, said the protest Saturday was as much about Baghdad politics as it was about tensions with Turkey. He added that Turkey is “determined” to continue the training program.
Earlier this week, Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu said Ankara has no intention of withdrawing the troops and even went so far as to suggest that Baghdad was being provocative by questioning Turkeys motives. The country’s internal divisions are not only hampering the country’s fight against the Islamic State group, they’re also encouraging other powers to bypass the central government, he said.
He went on to say that Russian Federation and Iran were behind the Iraqi complaints.
On Dec. 11, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz would shortly pay a visit to Baghdad upon a consensus reached with Iraqi Foreign Minister İbrahim al-Jaafari.
Al-Sistani admonished Turkey, saying it should not have sent “troops to the territory of another state under the pretext of supporting the fight against terrorism” and called on the Iraqi government to “protect the sovereignty of Iraq”. We don’t have that luxury. Baghdad has called the Turkish military incursion as a “flagrant violation” of global law.
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Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson of the United Nations chief told Xinhua that Ban “hopes that the Governments of Turkey and Iraq will step up their efforts to de-escalate the situation through constructive dialogue”.
