Erdogan says Turkey will not withdraw troops from camp in north Iraq

Both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have ruled out withdrawing the troops.

Turkey issued arrest warrants for U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and 66 others on Friday, state-run Anadolu Agency said, pressing President Tayyip Erdogan’s campaign to root out the influence of the former ally he accuses of trying to topple him.

“The number of our soldiers will increase or reduce according to the number of peshmergas who are trained”.

A row over the deployment has soured relations between Ankara and Baghdad, which denies having agreed to it. Ankara says the troops were sent as part of an global mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State. “(Their) withdrawal is out of the question”, Erdogan said.

But the base also gives Turkey a foothold in an area where a major ground operation against IS is eventually to take place, and where its archfoe, Turkish Kurdish rebel group the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, has also sought to expand its presence.

Erdogan suggested that the matter would be discussed more thoroughly on December 21 at a trilateral meeting between Turkey, the Iraqi Kurds, and the United States.

“If Israel takes steps on this issue, we will of course take needed steps, but the implementation of the previously reached consensus on compensation and the finalization of the negotiations is particularly important”, Ibrahim Kalın said in a press conference in Ankara.

The foreign minister’s conciliatory remarks came after Turkey’s powerful intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu held talks in Baghdad on Thursday.

Ayatollah Sistani said Iraq’s neighbors should not send any troops to Iraq “under the pretext of fighting terrorism”.

Earlier this week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi urged North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to force Turkey to immediately withdraw its troops from Iraq.