ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Wednesday that the purpose of Turkish troops in Iraq is to promote stability in the region and empower Erbil.
Davutoglu has said Turkey supports the Kurdistan region and that Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani's visit to Ankara on Wednesday is a clear indication of stable relations between the two.
“Our existence in Iraq is to ensure the stability of the region because we do not want to be neighbors with Daesh,” the Anadolu Agency quoted Davutoglu as saying. “Therefore, we will support both Iraq and the Kurdish region an all terms.”
Turkey works for stability in the region and remove threats posed by extremist groups, therefore "we sent forces to Mosul because we did not want ISIS become our neighbor," Davutoglu said.
During a meeting between Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Barzani, the two leaders stressed the significance of cooperation, according to local reports.
Davutoglu announced that Turkey’s head of the National Intelligence Organization Hakan Fidan and Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu would travel to Baghdad on Thursday in a bid to normalize relations with Iraq’s central government, which has condemned Turkey’s military action in Mosul province.
