Baghdad sticks to political means to end crisis with Ankara

December 15, 2015

[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]I[/dropcap]raq would stick to political option to end the serious problem with Turkey, stressing not to allow breaking into the country’s independent power of a country, Foreign minister said.

“We are committed to the political option on the Turkish invasion, and are interested in maintain our relations with Turkey, but that independent power of a country is a red line,” Xinhua quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Jaafari as saying on Sunday.

The focus is on “to improve relationships with people means to resolve the serious problem” with Turkey, as “it could be easy for us to be dragged into a serious problem, but it won’t be easy to get rid of such serious problem,” he said.

The minister said if Iraq allows any country to build military bases inside its land areas owned or controlled by someone, then the door would be opened for more countries to do so.

He also said Baghdad welcomes any help that would help it to free its land areas controlled by someone from any forces that would enter Iraq without the government’s permission.

Jaafari’s comments came three days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said withdrawing troops from Iraq is out of the question and that the Turkish soldiers were in Iraq as part of a training mission.

[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]T[/dropcap]he military service of Turkish troop’s dates back to 2002 and added troops were sent out and used in 2014 in response to a request from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi, Erdogan told a press meeting together.

“Turkish troops in Mosul are not there as fighters, they are trainers … It is out of the question, for now, to pull them out,” Erdogan said.

The serious problem between the two countries sparked last Friday when reports said a Turkish training military unit, large number prepared with protected by metal, vehicles was used near the city of Mosul to train Iraqi military-helping groups in fighting the Islamic State (IS) group.

Mosul, the capital of Nineveh area of control, has been under the IS control since June 2014.

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

Note:
1. Some of the content is from IANS