Iraqi defence minister asks Turkey to withdraw troops

“Turkey is establishing a base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul with 600 soldiers”, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its front page.

But Obeidi said the Turkish force was too large for this kind of goal.

Earlier in the week, Turkey sent “one armored regiment with a number of tanks and artillery” across the Iraqi border, according to a statement from the office the Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi. Following which, Turkey assured Iraq it would not take any steps to violate Baghdad’s sovereignty or territorial harmony.

“No further forces will be deployed to Bashiqa until concerns of the Iraqi government are overcome”, Interfax cited him as saying.

A senior Kurdish military officer based north of Mosul told Reuters that additional Turkish trainers had arrived at a camp in the area overnight on Thursday escorted by a Turkish protection force.

“Turkish soldiers have reached the Mosul Bashiqa region”.

Mosul has been under the control of the Islamic State (ISIS) group since a year ago.

“We call on the Turkish authorities to withdraw its military force from Iraqi territories and not repeating such an incident that hurt the relations between the two neighboring countries”, Masum said.

Kurdish Regional Government spokesperson Sefin Dizayi also confirmed in a statement that Turkey set up two training camps in Erbil and Suleymaniye past year to provide training to peshmerga forces and another one in Mosul to train other forces.

But a Turkish official said Saturday that the troops were training Iraqi Kurdish fighters, known as the Peshmerga, who are fighting Islamic State on the ground in northern Iraq. “Iraqi authorities call upon Turkey to withdraw immediately from Iraqi lands”.

Turkey claims the camp is a “training facility” to support volunteer forces in the fight against terrorism.

The deployment “is considered a serious violation of Iraqi sovereignty”, it added.

Turkey said on Monday it had a duty to protect its soldiers around the Islamic State-controlled city of Mosul in Iraq and that they were there simply on a training mission, after Baghdad ordered the immediate withdrawal of its latest deployment.

“The U.S. does not support military deployments inside Iraq absent the consent of the Iraqi government”, Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, or Islamic State, said in a tweet Sunday. They have also received first-aid training.

The move angered Baghdad, which said the troops had entered the country without the approval or knowledge of the government.