Turkey Warned by Iraq, Supported by Barzani

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Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani has said, “According to our information, Turkey and Iraq had come to an agreement with respect to Turkish soldiers deployed around Mosul” as to troops dispatched to Bashiqa camp.

CLICK - WHY TURKEY SENDS TROOPS TO MOSUL?

“An alliance has been formed to train enlistees that would join the operation of saving Mosul, and ensure necessary support. The deployment in question has been carried out in compliance with the agreement between the sides. I believe this issue has been exaggerated”.

Iraqi government: 24 hours left

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in his statement following his meeting with German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Baghdad, said, “We gave Turkey 48 hours to solve the issue, now they have only 24 hours left”.

“We have to be prepared for defending Iraq and our sovereignty”.

Abadi expressed that Turkey’s soldiers being present on Iraqi soil is unacceptable and they weren’t beforehand informed about this matter.

Support from Pentagon to Iraq

U.S. Secretary of Defense expressed that they don’t support “deploying soldier within the country without consent of Iraqi government”.

One of Pentagon spokespeople, Jeff Davis, said “We don’t support deploying soldiers within the country without consent of Iraqi government. That involves U.S. military staff as well as soldiers of any country”.

What had happened?

Turkey sending between 100 and 400 soldiers and 25 tanks according to different sources to the unit in Bashiqa near Mosul, which is located there for a year, has led to a crisis with Iraq.

Iraq administration reacting against the move evaluated it as “violation of sovereignty and against principle of good neighborhood relation”.

While Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu wrote a letter to Iraqi administration, Iraqi side said, “In case Turkey doesn’t withdraw its forces in 48 hours, [Iraq] has all kinds of rights to resort to different options including appealing to ‘United Nations Security Council’.” (YY/TK)