Turkey has had troops near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul in northern Iraq since a year ago, but the arrival of additional troops last week has sparked an uproar in the country.
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The message phrased “we urge the Security Council to ask Turkey to withdraw its forces immediately and not to desecrate Iraq’s sovereignty”.
Demonstrators said that Turkey’s actions are a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and independence.
Some of the Turkish troops deployed at the Bashiqa training camp in northern Iraq have been withdrawn to another part of northern Iraq, a Turkish military source said Monday.
Witnesses in Dohuk province in Iraqi Kurdistan reported seeing Turkish military equipment being moved on transport trucks towards the border.
“About six o’clock this morning, I saw transport trucks carrying tanks and armoured vehicles with Turkish flags on them going toward the Ibrahim Khalil crossing” leading from Iraq to Turkey, another witness said.
Turkey has been running a training program since March in a training camp established in Bashiqa, near Mosul, to provide training to Iraqi volunteers as part of the fight against ISIL terrorist group.
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But the deployment outraged the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, which bitterly complained to Ankara and said it would take the issue to the UN Security Council. The letter, which was seen by Reuters, was sent after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi instructed the Foreign Ministry to lodge a formal complaint at the United Nations.
