Iraq Asks UN Security Council: Demand Turkish Troops Leave North

Erdogan defended Turkey’s move to send more troops, saying IS and other terror groups were “running wild” in Iraq and that Baghdad was not able to protect the Turkish soldiers there. “The Iraqi minister notified (Lavrov) on developments around the illegal intrusion of Turkish military contingent into Iraq’s north and Baghdad’s appeal to the United Nations on the issue”, the foreign ministry said.

Thousands of Shiite militiamen and supporters rallied on Saturday and demanded that Turkish troops immediately withdraw from Iraqi territory, a show of strength by the country’s powerful militia groups and the Shiite political rivals of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Tensions between the two countries have increased dramatically since Turkey deployed about 150 soldiers backed by artillery and around 25 tanks to a base near the ISIS-controlled northern Iraqi city of Mosul on December 4. The Iraqi leader said that foreign troops were not needed to fight Islamic State militants in the country, and said it had given Turkey time to remove their troops. Iraq, however, denies any such deal.

“This is considered a flagrant violation of the principles of the UN Charter, and a violation of Iraqi territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state of Iraq”, said an unofficial translation of the Arabic text of the letter.

Demonstrators also trampled on the Turkish flag and hit a caricature of the Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with slippers as a demonstration of disrespect, Reuters reported.

Turkey has since halted new deployments, but has so far refused to pull out troops already stationed in Iraq.

Turkey has had troops near Mosul since a year ago but the arrival of additional troops last week sparked an uproar in Baghdad.

One diplomat on the 15-nation Security Council said on condition of anonymity that there were no immediate plans to convene a special meeting during the weekend in response to the Iraqi letter.

On Dec. 11, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz would shortly pay a visit to Baghdad upon a consensus reached with Iraqi Foreign Minister İbrahim al-Jaafari. A letter expressing these sentiments is also due to be delivered to the Iraqi PM by a high-level Turkish delegation.