Baghdad calls on Ankara to ‘immediately’ withdraw troops

The Iraqi government has demanded Turkey withdraw soldiers it sent over the border to an area in the country’s north controlled by Islamic State militants.

Abadi said on Twitter that the “unauthorized presence of Turkish troops in Mosul province is a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty”.

In a separate statement flashed on state TV, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry called the Turkish activity “an incursion” and rejected any military operation that was not coordinated with the federal government.

A senior Turkish official said earlier the soldiers in the region were there to train (Kurdish) peshmerga fighters.

Along with the troops, 20 to 25 tanks were also dispatched to the area, the sources added.

According to USA officials, this deployment is part of an agreement between Turkey and Iraq and does not involve the US or the coalition.

The peshmerga are one of the most effective Iraqi forces in the anti-IS fight, but coordination between them and the federal government in Baghdad has generally been poor.

“Our soldiers are already in Iraq”.

A Turkish security official said the troops had been in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on a training mission since past year. They are there as part of routine training exercises.

Turkey previously had been criticized by its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies for not doing enough to stem the rise of IS in Syria and Iraq.

Before joining the coalition, Turkey had sought to stake out a more neutral stance toward IS.

They were all released unharmed in September 2014 after top-secret negotiations led by Turkey’s intelligence agency that reportedly resulted in the release of jihadist prisoners in Turkey in exchange for the embassy staff.