DHA Photo
A number of Turkish troops stationed at Bashiqa Camp near Mosul on Dec. 14 were transferred to a region under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, Turkish sources told Hürriyet Daily News.
The troops left the camp on Dec. 14, and will not return to Turkey at the moment, according to sources.
The decision came after the international community put pressure on Ankara over Baghdad’s harsh reaction to the deployment of Turkish soldiers in the camp.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said necessary steps have been taken for “new arragement” of troops, adding that presence would continue for military training.
“We are ready for any kind of cooperation,” Davutoğlu said.
Iraq appealed to the United Nations Security Council on Dec. 11 to demand an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Turkish troops from northern Iraq, calling Turkey’s military incursion a “flagrant violation” of international law.
“We call on the Security Council to demand that Turkey withdraw its forces immediately… and not to violate Iraqi sovereignty again,” Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said in a letter to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, president of the Security Council, this month.
“This is considered a flagrant violation of the principles of the U.N. Charter, and a violation of Iraqi territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state of Iraq,” the letter said, according to an unofficial translation of the Arabic original.
Some Turkish troops deployed in northern Iraq are leaving the Bashiqa camp, heading north to a yet unknown destination as part of a “new arrangement,” a military source says.
The source told Reuters on Monday that the Turkish forces were leaving the camp, close to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which is controlled by Daesh terrorist group.
Baghdad had strongly criticized the Turkish incursion. Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Sunday that Baghdad had submitted a formal complaint to the UN Security Council (UNSC) regarding Turkey’s military moves in northern Iraq.
It is not yet clear whether the troops were moving within Iraq or heading back to Turkey.
On Friday, following talks with Iraqi officials, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office announced in a statement Ankara’s decision to “reorganize” its military personnel at the Bashiqa camp.
“Taking into account the Iraqi government’s sensitivity, the decision was taken to reorganize the military personnel in the protection force at the Bashiqa camp,” Davutoglu’s office said.
Tensions have been running high between Baghdad and Ankara since December 4, when Turkey deployed some 150 soldiers, equipped with heavy weapons and backed by 20 to 25 tanks, to the outskirts of Mosul, the capital of Iraq’s Nineveh Province.
Over the past few days, thousands of Iraqi protesters have staged demonstrations across the country to denounce the Turkish deployment of military forces. On December 11, Iraq’s top Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani also called on the government to show “no tolerance” toward any party that violates the country’s sovereignty.
Ankara claims that its troops have been deployed to northern Iraq to train Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters against the Daesh terrorist group, and that the move was in line with previous agreements with Baghdad. The Iraqi government, however, denies any such deal.
December/14/2015