Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on the government on Friday to show “no tolerance” of any infringement of the country’s sovereignty, after Turkey deployed heavily armed troops to northern Iraq.
Sistani’s spokesman, Sheikh Abdul Mehdi Karbala’i, did not explicitly name Turkey, but a row over the deployment has badly soured relations between Ankara and Baghdad, which denies having agreed to it.
Sistani also said Iraq’s neighbors should not send any troops to Iraq “under the pretext of fighting terrorism,” except with the approval of the Baghdad government.
“The Iraqi government is responsible for protecting Iraq’s sovereignty and must not tolerate and side that infringes upon on it, whatever the justifications and necessities,” Karbalai’i said in a weekly sermon.
Ankara says the troops were sent as part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight ISIS.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday a withdrawal was “out of the question for the moment.”
Speaking at a news conference, Erdogan said the troops were there to train Kurdish peshmerga fighters and not for combat purposes. He reiterated an earlier statement that they had been deployed following an invitation by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi last year.
“The number of our soldiers (in northern Iraq) might increase or decrease depending on the number of peshmerga being trained,” Erdogan stated.
Erdogan said there would be a trilateral meeting between Turkey, the United States and Kurdish northern Iraqi authorities on Dec. 21 but made no mention of talks with Baghdad.
Later on Thursday, prime ministerial sources said PM Ahmet Davutoglu had at the request of U.S. officials spoken to Vice President Joe Biden.
Davutoglu told Biden that Turkey co-ordinating with Iraq in its efforts to tackle ISIS, and that a letter to the Iraqi prime minister laying out the Turkish position was being delivered by a high-level delegation which included Turkey’s spy chief, Hakan Fidan.
“He expressed that Turkey will continue to contribute to the government of our friend Iraq’s fight against (ISIS), in coordination with Baghdad,” one source added. The White House confirmed the call had taken place.
Speaking to his counterpart earlier this week, the Turkish foreign minister emphasized Ankara’s respect for Iraqi territorial integrity and said further troop deployments had been halted for now.
Reuters
