Iraqi prime minister calls for withdrawal of Turkish troops

“Armenpress” reports the aforementioned citing Sputnik International.

Erdogan told reporters Thursday that the troops were deployed in 2014 in response to a request from the Iraqi government.

Baghdad however keeps on reminding Ankara daily that the latest deployment of some 150 soldiers and a few dozen tanks was done without the permission or consent of from Iraq.

Turkish flags burned. Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who’s the present Prime Minister’s fiercest competitor, walked through the square and was mobbed by assistants who snapped pictures and video on their telephones.

Sistani urged citizens to show restraint towards foreign residents of Iraq, after paramilitary groups threatened to use force against Turkey and target its interests to force it to pull out.

The Turkish leader said a trilateral meeting, gathering officials from Turkey, the United States and the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, would take place on December 21.

News of the deployment of Turkish soldiers to a base near Mosul last week has triggered a crisis between Ankara and Baghdad, which demands their immediate withdrawal.

Meanwhile, a senior Iraqi politician said that Turkey is plotting to create a Sunni-dominated region in Iraq and Syria by deploying forces to Mosul.

Pointing his pistol towards an image of Erdoğan, Amjad Salim, a local commander in the Badr Organisation in Basra, said: “We are on high alert now awaiting orders from our commanders to set fire to the ground beneath the feet of Turkish soldiers”.

Iraq on Friday circulated a letter among the members of the UN Security Council to express “growing alarm” that the problem was not being resolved.

Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has also joined the fray, saying that the Turkish deployment was done “under the pretext” of helping fight “IS”, while Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday reiterated his warning that Iraq would protect its sovereignty by “any means”.

Despite the insistence from Baghdad for the Turkish troops stationed in their nation to leave, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan defended their presence. The internal sections in the country’s are not just hampering the fight against the Islamic State group in the country’s, they are also supporting other powers to avoid the central government, he said.