Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has said today that an agreement had been reached with Turkey over an Iraqi demand that Turkish forces withdraw from a town near Mosul in the north of the country, Iraqi state TV reported.
Al-Abadi met his Turkish counterpart Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Baghdad. State television did not provide further details about the agreement over the town of Bashiqa, where Turkish forces have been stationed since before a recent offensive against Daesh in northern Iraq.
It said Turkey had pledged to “respect the sovereignty of Iraq” and that Baghdad and Ankara agreed not to interfere in each other’s domestic affairs.
Iraq and Turkey came to diplomatic blows in October over the continued presence of Turkish forces in Bashiqa and elsewhere in northern Iraq, with each government summoning the other’s ambassador just as the US-backed campaign to drive Daesh out of Mosul was set to begin.
Turkey claims that it was invited into Iraq by Baghdad, a claim denied by the Iraqi government despite the existence of footage of then-Defence Minister Khalid Al-Obeidi touring the Turkish military camp in the presence of Turkish officers last year.
Ankara says that its presence in Bashiqa is to support the training of various anti-Daesh forces, including the Kurdish Peshmerga, and to provide artillery and other indirect support to allied fighters moving against Daesh in Mosul since 17 October 2016.
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