‘Out of question’: Erdogan rules out Turkish troop withdrawal from Iraq

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says that Turkish troops had been stationed at a military base in northern Iraq at the request of Iraq’s leader since 2014, al-Jazeera reported on Wednesday.

“Our servicemen went to Iraq as instructors, their mission is limited to training”, Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara.

Tuesday’s closed-door Security Council consultations were called by Russian Federation in response to a diplomatic spat between Baghdad and Ankara following the posting of Turkish military trainers to Bashiqa, near Mosul, last week.

Erdogan insisted that the troops consist of a noncombative force.

Iraq’s Foreign Ministry has requested an emergency meeting of top diplomats from the Arab League to adopt a united position vis-a-vis Turkey’s illegal deployment of troops to northern Iraqi territories.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who also met Barzani, defended the deployment of several hundred troops – which has enraged Baghdad – as a necessary measure to help Iraq in the fight against Islamic State jihadists.

The Turkish battalion located outside the city of Mosul arrived at the invitation of the former governor of Mosul in order to train volunteers from the city to defend it after the Iraqi government’s forces fled and terrorists penetrated deeply into the rural areas of that province.

“Our understanding of the original Turkish deployment is that, that was something that was negotiated with the government of Iraq”.

It says it has halted the deployment but will not pull out the troops already there. He said he came to this conclusion as he visited Washington in a delegation of the UN Security Council members’ ambassadors.

Tensions between Iraq and Turkey have built up in recent days after Ankara deployed a contingent of between 150 and 300 soldiers, backed by 20 tanks in Mosul. It threatened to refer the case to the Security Council unless Turkey withdraws its forces.

Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Badr Organization, considered one of the country’s most powerful Shiite militias, said Monday that any USA base in Iraq would be considered “a target” by his fighters.

“They gave explanations saying basically that all that was in the interest of fighting against ISIL and in the interest of Iraq”, Churkin said.

She said many also think the move is to counter the presence and strength of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), especially after the large role they played in the liberation of Sinjar district center.