Biden, in call with Turkey’s Davutoğlu, urges cooperation with Iraq

He also asked the Foreign Ministry to submit a complaint to the United Nations about the presence of Turkish troops.

The transfer came after Iraq’s strong reaction to the deployment of the Turkish troops to Bashiqa, which Ankara says was aimed at training forces fighting Islamic State (IS) militants.

The office of Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday it would reorganise its military personnel at the Bashiqa camp near Mosul after talks with Iraqi officials to settle the dispute.

Turkey pulled some troops out of a base near Mosul in northern Iraq, according to a report Monday, in an apparent attempt to quell a row with the government in Baghdad over the deployment of soldiers to the neighbouring country.

It wasn’t immediately known if the Turkish troops would return to Turkey or would be stationed in Iraq’s Kurdish-controlled region.

Baghdad said the deployment had been carried out without consultation and violated national sovereignty and global law.

Over the phone, Biden encouraged Ankara to continue its dialogue with Baghdad on additional measures to improve relations between Turkey and Iraq.

“The entry of Turkish military assets into Iraqi territory without the prior understanding or consent of the Iraqi government canno be accepted or tolerated” the statement read.

“It will not take place”.

Tensions have been running high between Baghdad and Ankara since December 4, when Turkey deployed some 150 soldiers, equipped with heavy weapons and backed by 20 to 25 tanks, to the outskirts of Mosul, the capital of Iraq’s Nineveh Province. “It is not planned”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.