Turkey's representative to the UN: we have taken immediate steps to remove escalation with Baghdad
Saturday, 19 December 2015
11:22

Shafaq News / Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations Ambassador ,Yashar Khaled Chwik confirmed that his country "has spared no effort to resolve the matter - the tension with Baghdad bilaterally before being submitted to the Security Council, and that Iraq needs friends to help it defeat ISIS, and Turkey is one of those Friends. "

This came in response of the Turkish Ambassador, to that Iraqi Foreign Minister "Ibrahim al-Jaafari," demand from the UN Security Council to issue a clear decision that includes specific points condemning what he called "as the Turkish occupation and illegal incursion in the territory of Iraq."

The Turkish-Ambassador said in his testimony to the members of the Security Council at a meeting on Iraq, on Friday evening at New York time that Turkey has provided military assistance to Iraq since the beginning of ISIS occupation on parts of its territory.

He added, "At the request of the Iraqi government, members of the Turkish military trained Iraqi volunteers, and because of the growing threats to the military of our personnel in Bashiqa, we decided to strengthen the protection elements of our units in the camp, unfortunately the issue of sending a number of troops there was aamplified." .

The Turkish stressed ambassador to the country, to take immediate steps to remove escalation, and stopped all the additional reinforcements in Bashiqa.

He said that "Turkey is under attack not only from ISIS but also from terrorists organization as PKK terrorist organization, and Turkey has called on the Iraqi government to stop their activities, but the response was that they are in non-government-controlled areas, and we stress the need for the Iraqi government to prevent the use of its territory for terrorist attacks against Turkey by ISIS or PKK ".

For his part, the Iraqi ambassador - who was speaking at the same meeting, said that "hundreds of Turkish soldiers with a number of armored vehicles, tanks and guns penetrated to more than a hundred kilometers in the Iraqi territory in the third of current December."

He added, "We ask you two important things: the first to condemn the Turkish occupation and illegal incursion against the will of the Republic of Iraq as a founding member of the United Nations and secondly: ask Turkey to withdraw its troops immediately, and that the Security Council ensures all available immediate and unconditional means for withdrawal to the internationally recognized border between the two countries. "

He said, "We also demand not to repeat such unilateral actions that harm the international relations and exacerbate sectarian and nationalist tensions in the region and offers regional and international security to a significant risk."

The Turkish-Iraqi relations are strained recently , after nearly 150 Turkish soldiers and 25 tanks arrived "Ba'shiqah" sub-district in Nineveh province by road, to replace its contingent there, on the training of Peshmerga forces and national crowd, in which its presence was at the request of Iraqi Prime minister, "Haider al-Abadi". https://english.shafaaq.com/politics/17063-turkey-s-representative-to-the-un-we-have-taken-immediate-steps-to-remove-escalation-with-baghdad.html