Turkish troops are to remain at a military camp in northern Iraq until the Islamic State group is driven out of the nearby city of Mosul, Turkey’s deputy prime minister said yesterday, signaling no respite in a row with Baghdad over the deployment.
The Turkish soldiers are at the Bashiqa camp training Sunni Muslim and Kurdish Peshmerga units, which Turkey wants to take part in an expected battle for Mosul. However, their presence has sparked a row with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, which wants its forces to be in the forefront of the offensive.
The US on Tuesday urged the two governments to resolve the spat, which could affect the planned US-backed assault on Mosul, the headquarters of Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in northern Iraq since 2014.
Photo: Reuters
“Turkey does not move on orders from others... Turkey’s presence in the Bashiqa camp will remain until Mosul is rid of Daesh,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told the state-run Anadolu Agency, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
“Whoever the Mosul population is, Arabs or Turkmen, they have lived together for centuries and will continue to do so. If you change the ethnic structure here, the people there will not allow it... This is our perspective as Turkey. Turkey’s force in the region cannot be questioned,” he said.
NATO member Turkey shares a 1,200km border with Syria and Iraq and faces threats from Islamic State militants in both. However, it is concerned that international efforts to destroy the radical extremists will leave new dangers in their wake.
The Turkish army launched an incursion into Syria in August to push back the Islamic State and prevent the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia from seizing ground.
Ankara is wary of Washington’s support for what it sees as a hostile Syrian Kurdish force.
Kurtulmus said Turkey would participate in the operation to push extremists out of Mosul as long as the YPG was not involved.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeastern Turkey and has bases in northern Iraq.
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