OPINION:
In the last 48 hours, Turkey has sent hundreds of troops and at least 20 tanks into northern Iraqi territory north of Mosul, which is occupied by the Islamic State.
The Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has said the deployment was routine and a rotation of troops at a training camp for Kurdish forces, pre-approved by the Iraqi government. The Iranian-backed Iraqi government doesn’t see it that way.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued a statement recently on the incursion, and it has been confirmed to us that Turkish troops numbering around one regiment armored with tanks and artillery entered the Iraqi territory. Also, there are specifical claims in the province of Nineveh claim that Iraqi groups are being trained without the request or authorization from the Iraqi federal authorities and this is considered a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty and does not conform with the good neighborly relations between Iraq and Turkey.
The Iraqi authorities call on Turkey to respect good neighborly relations and to withdraw immediately from the Iraqi territory.
Rudaw reports on comments by Hadi al-Ameri, the head of the militant Shiite Badr Organization, “Violations of Iraqi territory will be responded to. We are strongly against it,” al-Ameri said in a speech Monday at Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. “We know about the project to divide Iraq, but with God’s help it will be defeated.
“Turkish tanks will be blasted if they don’t leave Iraq immediately,” he continued. “You shot down a Russian warplane just because of seven seconds, and now how could you violate Iraqi sovereignty?”
Obviously there are conflicting agendas by all players involved in the conflict in Iraq and Syria. Many analysts have suggested that Turkey is attempting to protect oil pipelines siphoning oil produced in the region and smuggling it into Turkey. It seems a given that Turkey, a NATO member, does not have the best interests of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at heart.
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