Turkey denies plan to withdraw troops from Iraq
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Turkish presidency on Thursday denied that it was withdrawing troops from Iraq as part of a new security deal with Baghdad and said Turkey will continue its cross-border military operations against Kurdish guerillas.
According to an article published by the opposition-aligned T24 news outlet on Wednesday, a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Turkish and Iraqi defense ministers in Ankara on August 15 states that Turkey has agreed to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
The Anti-Disinformation Centre (DMM), which is affiliated with the Turkish presidency’s communications directorate, shared a screenshot of the T24 article and denied the news. It said the security agreement, which covers military and security coordination between the neighbors, does not mention a Turkish withdrawal.
T24 based its story on the contents of the memorandum published by Rudaw on Monday. Article one of the pact, addressing the aim of the deal, stipulates that Turkey and Iraq should respect each other's territorial sovereignty and includes “an end to Turkey’s military presence on Iraqi soil and suspension of all sorts of violations.”
A copy of the memorandum published by Soran Omar, a Kurdish lawmaker in Baghdad, on Thursday, matches that published by Rudaw.
Turkish troops have been present in Bashiqa, a base northeast of Mosul, for nearly a decade. The new memorandum states that Turkey and Iraq will establish a joint security coordination center in Baghdad and a joint training and cooperation center in Bashiqa. The DMM confirmed this provision.
“These centers will enable the elimination of threats posed by terrorist organizations to the sovereignty, security and regional security of the two countries,” the DMM stated, adding that “Turkey's fight against terrorism continues with determination both at home and beyond its borders.”
The memorandum of understanding was signed when Iraq and Turkey held their fourth security meeting in Ankara earlier this month. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told reporters during a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara on August 15 that Turkey had agreed to hand the Bashiqa military base over to Iraqi forces.
“I am glad that, after long, frank and clear talks, we have reached a number of points which include how to treat the Bashiqa military base. We reached a clear understanding that Bashiqa military base will be turned into an Iraqi military training base… It will be run by the [Iraqi] Armed Forces,” he said.
Turkey deployed troops to Bashiqa on the pretext that it was training local forces in 2015 after the Islamic State (ISIS) took control of swathes of Iraqi territory. The deployment strained Ankara’s relations with Baghdad, which did not authorize it. Iraqi officials and politicians have repeatedly called for the withdrawal of Turkish troops.
The base has been the target of several attacks over the years, some of them claimed by groups affiliated with pro-Iran militia groups.
Security coordination between Ankara and Baghdad has expanded since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Iraq earlier this year. Since then, Iraq has taken several actions against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), including banning the group and closing three political parties with alleged ties to it.
Turkey also has a military presence in the Kurdistan Region where it has 74 military bases and its forces have killed at least 344 civilians since the 1990s, the US-based Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights organization and conflict monitor tracking these Turkish operations, said in a damning report on August 14.
It is not clear if the memorandum of understanding covers the presence of Turkish forces in the Kurdistan Region.
Turkey began intensifying its decades-long war against the PKK in Duhok province in mid-June and has deployed hundreds of troops to the province.
The federal government in Baghdad and the regional one in Erbil have remained largely quiet about Turkey’s military incursions and the devastation the conflict has inflicted on the civilian population and the environment.