Russian Federation to raise Turkey’s military action at UN — UN diplomat

He called the deployment a precaution against Islamic State attacks on a training camp.

“Those who make different interpretations of the Turkish military presence in Mosul are involved in deliberate provocation”, he told the deputies. Please see our terms of service for more information.

The complexity of the crisis in Iraq and Syria is demonstrated by Turkey’s relationship with the Kurds of northern Iraq, said Pipes, an expert on the Middle East and Islam.

Russia, already furious after Turkey shot down one of its jets flying a sortie over Syria in November, said it considered the presence of the Turkish forces in Iraq illegal.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Ankara could find alternatives to Russian oil and gas although he emphasised there was “no sign” so far that Moscow could cut off supplies.

Turkey called the allegations slander, and its allies, led by the USA, have?called them unfounded.

Davutoglu, a former university professor fluent in both English and Arabic, defended Turkey’s recent deployment of troops in northern Iraq, a move that has sparked a row with Baghdad.

The Kurds in northern Iraq take a “quite benign” view of having Turkish soldiers in their region, said Pipes; around 15-20 percent of the Turkish population is Kurdish.

While Turkey has been busy “advising” Kurdish forces, the number of foreign fighters joining extremist groups appears to be increasing, according to a report published this week by the Soufan Group consultancy.

“Our understanding of the original Turkish deployment is that it was negotiated with the Iraqi government”.

Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday Turkey had had made the necessary response over Sunday’s incident which came amid escalating Russian-Turkish tensions following Turkey’s downing of a Russian plane. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), an ethnic superprovince of Iraq in the northeast, which is semi-autonomous, no longer has a border with Iraq proper, only with Daesh.

Russia’s foreign ministry said a film crew from Russia’s main state TV news channel was detained in Turkey’s Hatay province – which borders on Syria – on 7 December.

“We believe Turkey has acted recklessly and inexplicably, carrying out additional deployments on the territory of Iraq without the consent of Iraqi government”, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters.

Safa Majeed in Baghdad and Thomas Grove in Moscow contributed to this article.