ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has said he will emphasize the importance of respecting Iraq’s sovereignty on his visit to Turkey on Friday as Ankara continues to insist that it will play a role in the Mosul operation against Islamic State (ISIS) in disregard of Baghdad’s wishes. “Of course we’ll talk about that. And yes, of course there are sensitivities there. We conduct ourselves, and the coalition does, respecting Iraqi sovereignty,” Carter said, “That’s an important principle of ours.” Turkey has a training base and heavy weapons in Iraq’s Bashiqa region, where it has been training the 3,000-strong Nineveh Guard militia which it wants to participate in the Mosul operation. To date none of these forces have fought in the operation, which began on Monday, and Turkish jets have not carried out any airstrikes on ISIS targets in Mosul in coordination with the US-led coalition. The Turkish government justifies its deployment at Bashiqa as a necessary security precaution and also insists that the Nineveh Guard should participate in the Mosul operation to avoid sparking any sectarian hostilities. Iraq has said it will not permit the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi militia from participating in operations inside that Sunni-majority city to minimize the prospect of such hostilities. An anonymous US defense official cited by Reuters said that Turkey’s security interests in that region are justified, but stressed that the US position is one whereby “no military should be operating in areas [of Iraq] where they aren’t invited expressly.” “We have been working behind the scenes to get the Iraqis and the Turks to come to an understanding about how we’re going to move forward on Mosul,” he added.
