Turkey halts sending Army to Iraq

Turkey has halted a deployment of troops to northern Iraq, but will not obey Iraq’s request to withdraw those already there, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, insisting they had been sent with Iraq’s knowledge to help fight ISIS.

The arrival of a heavily armed Turkish contingent at a camp near the frontline close to the city of Mosul has added yet another controversial deployment to a war against ISIS that has drawn in most of the world’s major powers.

Russia, already furious after Turkey shot down one of its jets flying a sortie over Syria in November, said it considered the presence of the Turkish forces in Iraq illegal.

Ankara says its troops are in Iraq to train Iraqi forces. “Training at this camp began with the knowledge of the Iraqi defence ministry and police,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a meeting of deputies from his ruling AK Party.

In the last few days, Baghdad has denied that it knew about the mission and said it would go to the United Nations Security Council if the troops were not pulled out by Tuesday.

In a phone conversation with his Iraqi counterpart late on Monday, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu emphasised Ankara’s respect for Iraq’s territorial integrity, spokesperson Tanju Bilgic told reporters.

“He (Mr Cavusoglu) said that our activities aimed to contribute to the struggle against Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq and reiterated that the deployment had stopped,” Mr Bilgic said. “There is no withdrawal at the moment, but the deployment has stopped.”