After protests, Turkey withdraws some troops from Iraq

Turkey has been training Kurdish pesh merga forces and Sunni Arab fighters — mostly policemen who fled Mosul’s capture last year by the Islamic State — in northern Iraq for nearly a year, but with the permission of only the local Kurdish government, not Baghdad.

When Turkey recently sent a new detachment of troops, with armored vehicles and tanks, to a camp in Bashiqa, near Mosul, it set off protests throughout Iraq. Demonstrators burned Turkish flags recently at gatherings in Baghdad and other cities, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, saying the troops infringed on Iraqi sovereignty, vowed to seek action by the United Nations Security Council to force out the Turkish troops.

The episode has highlighted how divided Iraq is, and showed the weakness of the central government and its lack of control over its territory.

After talks last week between Turkish and Iraqi leaders, including a visit to Baghdad by Turkey’s intelligence chief, many of the Turkish troops who had recently been sent to northern Iraq — but apparently not all — were withdrawn on Monday. Turkish officials had said the troops had been sent to protect military trainers from a rising threat of attacks by the Islamic State, and on Monday the semiofficial Anadolu News Agency said some were withdrawn out of "military necessity.”

It was unclear if the withdrawal was enough to defuse tensions with Baghdad, and there was no statement on Monday from Mr. Abadi. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke Monday with Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, and a statement issued by the White House said Mr. Biden "welcomed reports of the withdrawal of Turkish troops out of Camp Bashiqa as an important step to de-escalate recent tensions.”

 

(NYT)