Turkey defends additional troop deployment in Iraq

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkish troops were in Iraq on the request of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi since 2014 as the row between the two countries deepens.

“It is out of the question, for now, to pull them out”, he said.

Masoud Barzani, the leader of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), was in Ankara yesterday to discuss deepening Turkish support for Kurdish fighters in Iraq.

Russian Federation has retaliated by deploying long-range air defense missile systems to its base in Syria and imposing economic sanctions on Turkey. Shiah paramilitary groups with ties to Iran threatened to use force against Turkey today unless it withdraws its troops from Iraqi territory, after a 48-hour deadline set by the government expired.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told parliament: “As (the local Kurdish leader) Mr. Barzani said, these Peshmerga trained by Turkish soldiers contributed to the recapturing of Sinjar”.

Speaking to his counterpart earlier this week, the Turkish foreign minister emphasized Ankara’s respect for Iraqi territorial integrity and said further troop deployments had been halted for now. “We strongly advise those (Turkish citizens) whose stay is not essential (in Iraq) to leave those provinces as soon as possible”, the Ministry said.

“Our presence (near) Mosul will continue as part of the training programme”, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara.

Iraq does not need foreign ground forces, and the Iraqi government is committed not to allow the presence of any ground force on Iraqi land.

It said Iraq’s Foreign Ministry is also making contacts with the five permanent members of the UNSC and other countries “to gather worldwide support for issuing a Security Council resolution condemning this violation”. “There were complaints to the Security Council”, he responded.

Exaggerated media reports in recent days of Turkish troops deploying to a base near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul sparked outrage in Baghdad. He said he came to this conclusion as he visited Washington in a delegation of the UN Security Council members’ ambassadors. Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq was also summoned to the parliament on Thursday, he added.

“Our belief is that just as we operate in close coordination with and with the consent of Iraqi government that all countries should do that”, Power said.