An unspecified number of tanks also left.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from northern Iraq in a national address Friday night, insisting that no foreign forces are needed to fight IS in his country.
On Dec. 4, approximately 150 Turkish soldiers and about 25 tanks were sent to the camp to replace training units already in the area. The Turkish troops in the camp were not given combat duties and responsibilities.
Iraq has demanded that Ankara withdraw the recently-deployed troops, but Turkey has yet to respond to the demand, saying they are merely meant to provide training.
Turkey withdrew troops Monday from a north Iraq camp, a lawmaker and witnesses said, after a deployment which Baghdad said went ahead without its permission and that sparked a diplomatic row.
Some of the several hundred Turkish troops who had been stationed in a camp outside the militant-controlled Iraqi city of Mosul have pulled out, state media said on Monday, after the deployment infuriated Baghdad.
Ankara claims that its troops have been deployed to northern Iraq to train Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters against the Daesh terrorist group, and that the move was in line with previous agreements with Baghdad.
Turkey is withdrawing some of its troops stationed at a base in Iraq, the country’s state-run news agency says.
“We at the Nineveh provincial council do not have any issues with having Turkish troops near Mosul because they are training the soldiers to be prepared for Mosul liberation offensive”, he explained.
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But the base also gave Turkey a foothold in an area where a major ground operation against IS is eventually to take place, and where its arch-foe, Turkish Kurdish rebel group the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has sought to expand its presence.
