Erdoğan on Iran-backed Forces: Bring It On

Click to read the article in Kurdish / Turkish

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spoken at the academic year opening in Beştepe.

Erdoğan explained at the opening why Turkey has been objecting to Mosul operation.

“Our objection to operation”

Turkey and Sunni groups stand against militia of Iran-backed Hashd al Shaabi, otherwise known as the People Mobilization Forces (PMF), participating in Mosul operation. After stating that they don’t want to be a party to sectarian conflict, Erdoğan said “Since the beginning of this operation, our objection is this. Mosul is predominantly Sunni Arabs and Turkmans.

“Now they say ‘There has to be a Shia-Sunni war here’. All right, good. But what is this ‘Baghdad’ you call? What you call ‘Baghdad’ is the administrator of an army consisting of completely Shia. Will we speak with them? If we speak with them about the destiny of Mosul, it comes to mean that we accept there will be a Shia-Sunni conflict here and then it will leave the city to Hashd al Shaabi. Now they speak about it, they say Hashd al Shaabi is coming with a group of 30,000.  Let them come, bring it on”. (HK/TK)