UN Security Council to meet at Moscow’s request on Syria, Iraq

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his country has no intention of pulling out troops from northern Iraq.

In an interview with Sputnik, Boris Dolgov, a prominent Russian expert on the Middle East, said that Turkey’s move to send troops to Iraq is a gross violation of worldwide norms, one which was conducted with prior approval from Washington. On other topics, Barzani said Tuesday that Kurdistan will remain neutral in a row between Baghdad and Ankara over Iraqi objections to Turkish troops training Peshmerga forces near Mosul.

Ankara says the troops are there as part of an worldwide mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight ISIL and will not withdraw them, although it said on Tuesday it would send no more.

He added that there would be a trilateral meeting between Turkey, the United States, and Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region on December 21.

Instead, the transcript quotes only the ambassador as saying that “Iraq did complain!”

He expressed disappointment that the council did not agree on Russia’s proposal to issue a statement reaffirming the need to respect global law and sovereignty and calling for unity against Islamic State extremists.

The advice applies to all of Iraq except the provinces of Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, which are controlled by the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government.

A member of the Turkish security forces stands guard at a check point on the main road to southeastern town of Silvan, near Diyarbakir, Turkey, August 18, 2015.

“Objections were expressed to him over such actions, with the ambassador also handed a demand of the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from the territory of Iraq”, Mihebis said.

Though officially the expansion was related to concerns about threats from ISIS, they also cited “declarations encouraging violence” against Turkish companies among Iraqi Shi’ite groups in recent weeks.

A protest against Turkish intervention in Iraq has been scheduled in Baghdad for Saturday.

A similar dynamic was on display when U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently said the U.S. military would deploy a new special operations force to Iraq, only to have the proposal shot down by al-Abadi.

Later on Thursday, prime ministerial sources said PM Ahmet Davutoglu had at the request of US officials spoken to Vice President Joe Biden.

Turkish fighter jets carried out a new barrage of air strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq overnight, the army said on Wednesday.