ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, in a meeting with the Turkish ambassador on Thursday, called on Turkey to withdraw their forces from Iraq, describing the foreign army’s presence as an outright "territorial violation" that has "no justification." "The presence of the Turkish troops is a territorial violation against the sovereignty of Iraq and there is no justification for that violation," Jaafari told the Turkish ambassador, Faruk Kaymakcı, according to a statement issued by Jaafari’s office after the meeting. Bilateral relations between Turkey and Iraq amid the global fight against the Islamic State terrorist organization were also discussed in the meeting, with both sides emphasizing the group has to be systematically degraded and ultimately defeated. For his part, Kaymakcı officially invited Iraq to take part in the World Humanitarian Summit under the patronage of the United Nations (UN) which will be held in Istanbul later this month. Turkey-Iraq relations took a turn for the worse in the wake of the deployment some 150 Turkish soldiers to Iraq in early December last year. Turkish officials said their troops were there to train local forces near Mosul and the Kurdish Peshmerga in their fight against ISIS. Baghdad condemned the deployment of foreign troops on its soil and made a complaint to the UN. No withdrawal of the Turkish troops has been seen. Rather they are still present in Nineveh province, based at Camp Bashiq, 70 kilometres west of Erbil.
