Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey has no intention of pulling out troops that are stationed in Iraq as part of a training mission to help combat the Islamic State group.
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The foreign ministry said Turkey had stopped the deployment two days ago due to the “sensitivities” of Iraqi authorities.
On Sunday, Baghdad gave Ankara 48 hours to remove its forces, but a senior Turkish official said this week that his government was unlikely to comply.
Last week, Turkey deployed about 150 troops and 25 tanks to a base in Iraq’s Nineveh province, without bothering to get permission from Baghdad.
“If Turkey does not withdraw its troops and the Security Council, the Arab League and the worldwide community will continue to idle, we will find a way to protect our legal rights”, Iraqi parliament member from the State of Law bloc, Awatif Nima, told RT.
A series of political spats that erupted in Baghdad over the past week surrounding foreign forces on Iraqi soil have exposed the increasing weakness of Iraq’s central government and a growing disconnect between Washington and Baghdad in the US-led coalition’s fight against the Islamic State group.
On December 9, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Turkish soldiers were dispatched to northern Iraq after an increase in the threat to Turkish military trainers from Islamic State.
The camp, where 2,441 people have been trained so far, was set up by Turkish forces at the Mosul governor’s request, and in coordination with the Iraqi Defense Ministry.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said his country “is there to train soldiers against Daesh, but the Iraqi government showed sensitiveness on this issue”.
All Turkish citizens who are now in Iraq were advised to leave the country, according to a statement published by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
Following exaggerated media reports of Turkish troops deploying to a base near Mosul, politicians in Baghdad were quick to express outrage.
Barzani has long-standing ties with Ankara, and there are multiple Turkish military sites in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. Following an announcement in July that it would join the global coalition against ISIS, the Turkish government instead focused most of its efforts against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist, U.S.-designated terrorist group.
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Mounting aggravation on the part of Iran, Iraq and Russian Federation against Turkey displays the characteristics of a plan to restrain Turkey and to abolish its regional role, thereby clearing the area of any obstacles to the Iranian project so that Tehran becomes the decision maker in Iraq and Syria.
