Baghdad and Ankara have been at loggerheads since December 2015 when Turkey sent additional troops to its training camp in Bashiqa to secure it from ISIS attacks. The issue recently resurfaced when Turkey began to make noise about participating in the military offensive to retake Mosul, leading the Iraqi parliament to seek to brand the Turkish presence as an occupation.
Following a heated long-distance exchange between the Iraqi prime minister and Turkish president over the issue this week, Baghdad issued a statement Thursday explaining that it had agreed in 2009 to Turkish forces training Iraqi forces, but never to Ankara sending in soldiers with heavy weapons.
Turkish forces are training a Sunni militia called the Hashd al-Watani at Bashiqa. Its deployment of additional forces, which included tanks and artillery, to secure that base in December 2015 sparked these current tensions.
"If Turkey considers sending its forces with weapons into Iraq without our consent and knowledge in return for training our forces in their country, then that means the Israeli army has the right to enter Turkish land as there is an agreement between Turkey and Israel for training their forces in Israeli land," read the Iraqi statement.
It also claimed that the Turkish forces "are not part of the US-led coalition to support Iraq in the fight against Daesh (ISIS) as there is no foreign fighting force with tanks and armored vehicles on Iraqi land, except for the Turkish force."
"The Iraqi forces will fight Daesh as the only ground force and Iraq has not asked any country to send their forces into Iraq," the statement added.
Also on Thursday, Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Jaafari rejected the different pretexts Turkey has used to justify its deployment.
"We have told Turkey to withdraw its troops, but every time they give a pretext for the presence of their forces in Iraq," Jaafari told Rudaw at a press conference, following a meeting with British government officials on Thursday.
"Sometimes they (the Turks) say their forces are in Iraq to fight the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), fight ISIS, cooperate with the Kurdistan Region or train Iraqi forces," Jaafari added.
Meanwhile, Turkey moved more forces along its border with the Kurdistan Region on Wednesday.
“A number of (Turkish) army vehicles and weapons were moved through Sırnak province all the way to Kurdistan Region's borders near the Zakho district,” a Rudaw correspondent reported.
Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper said the troops are there to control any potential wave of displaced persons fleeing the anticipated operation against ISIS in Mosul as well as to support ongoing Turkish operations against the PKK in that country's Kurdish southeast.
