Obama urges Turkey to de-escalate tensions with Iraq

Turkey accused Iraq today of undermining the global fight against Islamic State militants by taking its complaint about the deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq to the United Nations Security Council.

Turkey has said it has been running a training program in a camp established in Bashiqa, near Mosul, to provide training to Iraqi volunteers as part of the fight against Daesh terrorist group.

In a telephone call on Friday, Obama “urged President Erdogan to take additional steps to deescalate tensions with Iraq, including by continuing to withdraw Turkish military forces”.

“Iraq is requesting the Security Council to assume its worldwide legal responsibilities under the UN Charter, and to adopt a clear and explicit resolution includes the following, first, condemnation of the Turkish occupation and illegal incursion against the will of a founding member state of the UN, in breaching the rules and provisions of the UN Charter and the norms of global law”.

He said that since the closed door briefing to the Security Council on 8 December 2015 by UN Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenea on the Turkish troop deployment in northern Iraq, Baghdad and Ankara have held high-level bilateral discussions on this issue.

Earlier, the Iraqi government demanded the complete withdrawal of Turkish forces from its territory, indicating Ankara’s partial pullout was not enough. Turkey has stationed troops there since past year but recently sent more, claiming the need to protect its forces from IS attacks.

“From the outset, we tried to resolve this matter through bilateral channels”.

US President Barack Obama has called on his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to withdraw troops out of Iraq and respect the neighboring country’s integrity.

He said Turkey has never had and will never have any interest in violating Iraq’s sovereignty.