However, Iraqi authorities have accused Ankara of a military intervention and demanded that the forces leave the country. Turkey halted additional deployment, but said it vowed it won’t withdraw troops from Iraq.
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Iraqi lawmaker Salem al-Shabaki also said that Turkey withdrew troops from the camp near the northern city of Mosul, IS’s main hub in Iraq.
“Not all of them but some, I can’t say exactly how many”, al Nujaifi told the AP, adding “the Turkish trainers are still in the camp providing training”.
Protesters burn a Turkish national flag during a demonstration against the Turkish military presence in Iraq, at Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, Iraq, December 12, 2015.
“We have to exercise self-control and safeguard the rights of Turkish citizens working in Iraq”, Allawi said. The Vice President reiterated that any foreign military presence in Iraq must be with the full consent of the Iraq government.
Karim al-Nuri, the spokesman for the Badr Brigade, an Iraqi Shiite political party, likened the Turkish incursion to the occupation of Iraq by ISIL militants and said: “all options” were available.
“If it is unable to do so, it should request global assistance”, Allawi asserted.
The Turks managed to slip in under the Iraqi government’s radar due to Ankara’s collusion with the Kurdish regional government headed by Massoud Barzani, who has long cultivated relations with Turkey as a counterweight to the Barzani clan’s Kurdish rival, the Talabani camp which is allied to Iran. “They [the Iraqi government] are aware of all of this”.
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The office of KRG President Masoud Barzani said that the move came after extensive dialogue between the governments of Iraq and Turkey and also after the UN Security Council urged both sides to resolve the matter peacefully.
