He drew attention to the fact that neither the United Nations nor the global community reacted to Turkey’s troop deployment in Iraq, which he said confirms the inefficiency of current worldwide legal mechanisms. The two leaders had stressed the significance of cooperation to ensure stability in the region, according to Turkish presidency sources.
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No official comment was made after the nearly one-and-half hour meeting in Ankara.
Barzani’s first stop in Ankara was at the headquarters of the Turkish intelligence agency, MIT, where he will meet with MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan before meeting with Erdogan and Davutoglu.
“We say that the military option is still probable and we might reach a stage in the next few days where we start carrying out operations against the Turks, be it against their soldiers or Turkish interests in Iraq”.
Ankara has warned it could respond in kind, with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying on Tuesday that his government is considering retaliatory measures.
Turkey’s presence in northern Iraq is not a new situation; Turkish troops have been providing peshmerga forces – the army of the Iraqi Kurdish regional government – with training since Sep 2014.
“When the threats increased [to the lightly armed Turkish trainers], we sent troops to protect the camp”. The ministry said Ankara had deployed forces without Baghdad’s permission and warned that it considered the step as a “hostile act”. The steps include turning to the UN Security Council and introducing economic sanctions against Turkey.
Turkey said it had halted further deployment to the Bashiqa area but said there would be no pull-out.
Mr Abadi also accused Turkey of allowing Isis recruits into Iraq and the oil that funds Isis to be smuggled out.
The report found that the number of fighters has almost doubled and roughly 31,000 foreigners have joined groups like ISIL in the past year in Syria and Iraq.
“The main issue is to support Iraqis in their fight against Daesh”, he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
Abadi spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg by telephone, the statement added, calling the deployment a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.
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Turkey issued a warning to all of its citizens to leave Iraq Wednesday night, except for those in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
