Iraq at United Nations plays down dispute with Turkey over troop deployment

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey has no intention of pulling out troops that are stationed in Iraq as part of a training mission to help combat the Islamic State group.

A police officer was also killed by snipers in Turkey’s restive Kurdish-dominated southeast on Wednesday, local security sources said.

The row has badly soured relations and saw the Turkish ambassador to Iraq summoned on Saturday to demand that Turkey immediately withdraw hundreds of troops deployed in recent days in northern Iraq, near the Islamic State-controlled city of Mosul.

Shiite paramilitary groups with ties to Iran threatened to use force against Turkey on Wednesday unless it withdraws its troops from Iraqi territory, after a 48-hour deadline set by the government expired.

Russian Federation had called the informal talks, which were presided over by the United States, which heads the rotating presidency of the 15-nation council in December and leads the worldwide coalition fighting the Islamic State Group in Iraq and Syria.

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”.

Hurriyet also reported that there is a PKK dimension to the Turkish reinforcement, as PKK has a military presence in the area and its presence is considered a major threat for Turkey. He said he came to this conclusion as he visited Washington in a delegation of the UN Security Council members’ ambassadors. The Iraqi government says it never invited such a force.

Turkey, whose government strongly rejects the idea of a Kurdish state made out of now Turkish land, has returned the favor by boosting Erbil’s trade, in particular buying Kurdish oil.

“It’s a lie. This statement has nothing to do with reality… the Turkish troops have entered Iraq as invaders without a request from Iraqi government and without its permission”, he said.

Abadi spoke with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg by telephone, the statement added, calling the deployment a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

“We have not yet escalated it to the Security Council”, he said.

Turkey said it had halted further deployment to the Bashiqa area but said there would be no pull-out.

“He (Mr Cavusoglu) said that our activities aimed to contribute to the struggle against Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq and reiterated that the deployment had stopped”, Mr Bilgic said.