PHOTO: Turkish tank moving into the base at Bashiqa in northern Iraq
Turkish newspaper have revealed that Turkey has signed a deal with the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government for a base near the Islamic State’s center of Mosul, while the Baghdad Government has protested the deployment of Turkish special forces.
The deal for the base was signed in northern Iraq on November 4 between KRG President Massoud Barzani and then-Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu. It is located in the Bashiqa region of northern Nineveh Province, 32 km (20 miles) north of Mosul.
At least 150 Turkish soldiers, accompanied by 20-25 tanks, have been deployed to the area. The Turkish army said that they have been training more than 2,500 Kurdish peshmerga fighters and 1,250 Arab troops across four provinces in northern Iraq to fight the Islamic State. Military sources said the aim is to increase the training to 14,000 troops.
A statement from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said that the entry of “around one armed battalion with a number of tanks and cannons” was a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. It called on the forces to leave immediately.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said the Turkish activity was “an incursion” and rejected any military operation that was not coordinated with the Federal Government.
However, the Turkish military said that its training of Kurdish peshmerga had contributed to the Kurdish recapture of Sinjar in northwest Syria from the Islamic State last month.
For more than two years, Turkey has had a group of about 90 soldiers in Bashiqa.
In Washington, two US defense officials said Washington was aware of Turkey’s deployment of hundreds of Turkish soldiers to northern Iraq but added that the move is not part of the U.S.-led coalition’s activities.
