Iraq Demands Turkish Troops Withdraw From Near Mosul

Iraq considers the presence of any troops on its territory without its authorization a “hostile act”, the ministry said, while protesting to the Turkish ambassador and demanding immediate withdrawal of the Turkish troops from the IS-held city of Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

The deployment “is considered a serious violation of Iraqi sovereignty”.

The Baghdad government has strongly criticized Turkey and the U.S. for their commitment to send troops to battle the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in northern Iraq.

The troops, which Baghdad said had tanks and artillery, were sent to the camp in Nineveh province, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Turkish border, where Ankara’s forces have been training Sunni fighters hoping to retake Mosul from the jihadists.

Peshmerga forces from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region are deployed in the area, and Turkey’s Anatolia news agency said the troops were there to train them. A much anticipated counter-offensive by Iraqi forces has been repeatedly postponed because they are tied down in fighting elsewhere.

‘ Rather, it is a pre-existing “training facility established to support local volunteer forces” fight against terrorism’, set up in coordination with the Iraqi defence ministry, he said.

The Turkish forces have been helping train Sunni former Iraqi police officers and Sunni former Iraqi soldiers, who fled the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, to fight ISIS.

The founder of the training camp outside Mosul, former Ninevah governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, told The Associated Press that the Turkish trainers were at his base at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Iraqi government said the move did not “conform with good neighbourly relations” between the two states.

The new battalion, comprised of about 150 soldiers and 20-25 tanks, is described by Turkey as a routine troop rotation, but the Iraqi government claims it wasn’t consulted about the move beforehand – and it should have been.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday said that Ankara could find alternatives to Russian oil and gas, as bilateral tensions escalated over the downing of a Russian warplane.

Authorities from the Kurdistan region announced not long ago that the fresh troops are in Mosul to replace the current Turkish trainers.