However, Erdogan reiterated that Turkey’s presence in northern Iraq was not new.
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The aggravation of relations of the central government of Iraq with Ankara is due to the influence of external forces, according to him. Authorities may take “tougher steps”, including cutting trade links with Turkey, he said.
The Turkish prime minister’s office said in a statement that agreement was reached to start work on creating mechanisms to deepen cooperation with the Iraqi government on security issues.
The crisis was triggered over the weekend as reports stated that a Turkish training battalion, equipped with armored vehicles, was deployed near the city of Mosul in order to train Iraqi paramilitary groups against Islamic State militants.
The Iraqi escalation comes as Turkey faces economic sanctions from Russia after Turkish warplanes downed a Russian fighter jet last month.
Davutoglu has defended the deployment as an “act of solidarity” and said: “When the threats increased (to the lightly-armed Turkish trainers), we sent troops to protect the camp”.
Karim al-Nuri of the Shiite “Badr Brigade” compared the Turkish troops to the Islamic State and even raised the specter of the Ottoman Empire. “If Turkey maintains its position, what would be the benefit of trade with Iraq’s sovereignty breached?”
Last weekend, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador and demanded the Turkish forces be withdrawn.
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“Blinded by their limited understanding of foreign policy and regional calculations grounded on their Islamist/Sunni outlook, Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu walked into traps they set internationally, by quixotically chasing after pipe-dreams, not the least of which was the assumption that Turkey was a natural leader for the Middle East”, he writes.
