United States welcomes rearrangement of Turkish troops in Iraq

Turkey withdrew forces Monday from a north Iraq camp where Baghdad said they were deployed without its permission, a move that may help defuse a bitter diplomatic row with Ankara. An unspecified number of tanks also left.

It was not immediately clear how many soldiers were removed from the camp, where Ankara sent troops and tanks on a deployment last week it said was routine and necessary to protect Turkish trainers working with Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State militant group.

Barzani has benefited from this alliance with Turkey by securing military aid and training missions from Ankara as well as earning transit dues for Kurdish regional and Kirkuk oil pumped by the Kurds and exported through the pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Since March, Turkey has been operating a training program in the camp.

Baghdad has insisted that the Turkish troops had no authorization from the Iraqi government and thus demanded their withdrawal, while Ankara called the troops only a routine rotation of the trainers.

The Turkish prime minister’s office had announced on December 11 that it would “reorganize” its military personnel at the Bashiqa camp.

“The existence of the Turkish troops in the areas near Mosul is not new, it was planned with the Iraqi government to deliver training to the Iraqi Army and fighters of the region and we as Nineveh provincial council we welcome having Turkish troops”, he said.

Turkish military sources say they are moving north.

Pointing his pistol towards an image of Erdogan, 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 had asked Turkey to withdraw its troops.