Turkey says troops using artillery near Mosul but Iraq rejects "participation" claim in ongoing Peshmerga-led operation.
More to this story
Battle for Mosul: Who controls what
How will the battle for Mosul affect Iraq?
Why does the battle for Mosul matter to Turkey?
Iraq's joint-operations command has denied Turkey's claims of participation [Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters]
Turkish involvement in Mosul
Yildirim: Turkey supports Peshmerga with artillery and tanks
500 Turkish troops in Bashiqa, training Kurdish, Arab fighters
Kurdish Barzani: US-led coalition insufficient
Iraqi PM: Turkey risks "triggering a regional war"
Ongoing tensions between Turkey and Iraq have
intensified after Turkey said its troops fired artillery rounds at ISIL
targets near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, following a request by
Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
Binali Yildirim, Turkish prime minister, said on Sunday that
Turkish troops stationed outside Mosul had provided support "with
artillery, tanks and howitzers" following a request by Peshmerga forces.
However, Iraq's joint-operations command on Monday denied Turkey's claims.
"The spokesman of the Joint Operations Command
denies Turkish participation of any kind in operations for the
liberation of Nineveh," a statement said, referring to the Iraqi
province of which Mosul is the capital.
Later in the day, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, said
Turkish artillery fire had killed 17 ISIL fighters since the battle
began and that four Turkish F-16 fighter jets were on standby to take
part.
Turkey's parliament voted last
month to extend the deployment of an estimated 2,000 troops across
northern Iraq by a year to combat "terrorist organisations".
About 500 of these troops are stationed in the Bashiqa camp , training Kurdish and local Sunni Arab fighters.
Battle for Mosul: Peshmerga pushes for ISIL-held Bashiqa
"Peshmerga forces took action to clear the town
of Bashiqa from Daesh," Yildirim said, using the Arabic acronym for
ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, also known as
ISIS.
"They asked for help from our troops at the Bashiqa
camp and we are supporting them with artillery, tanks and Firtina
howitzers."
Mosul, home to up to 1.5 million people, has been the
headquarters of ISIL's self-declared caliphate in northern Iraq since
2014.
The battle for the city, which started earlier this month, is likely to shape the post-ISIL Iraq.
Thousands of Peshmerga forces are currently involved in a
massive push around the town of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul, where
Turkey has its military base.
The forces of the autonomous Kurdish region, whose leader
Masoud Barzani has close ties with Turkey, approve Turkey's presence in
the area and complained recently that the US-led coalition's air
support was insufficient.
Turkey had repeatedly stated it wanted a part in the
operation, but Turkish presence in northern Iraq has inflamed Iraq
public opinion and of dominant Shia parties in the federal government of
Baghdad.
Haider al-Abadi, Iraq's prime minister, is under
domestic pressure not to be seen as tolerating the presence on his soil
of troops from a country many in Iraq see as having abetted the deadly
conflict in Iraq.
Only weeks before Iraqi troops and their local and
international partners started their push to retake Mosul, Abadi gave
warning that Turkey risked "triggering a regional war" by trying to keep
its troops within Iraq's borders.
Abadi's government requested an emergency UN Security
Council meeting to discuss the issue, and both countries summoned each
other's ambassadors in a mounting diplomatic standoff.
Speaking in Ankara last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
said Turkey did not want to be part of any sectarian conflict in Iraq,
but voiced concerns for the future of Sunni Arabs and Turkmens in Mosul.
"If we say we want to be both at the table and in the field, there is a reason," he said.
Erdogan also said his country has a "historical responsibility" in the region.
Mosul remained under Ottoman control for nearly 400 years, until its capture by Britain in 1918.
Mosul served as the capital of one of the three provinces in Ottoman Iraq and was seen as an integral part of the empire.
Ottoman empire
The US recently told Turkey to respect the Iraqi government's wishes regarding its military presence in the country.
"All of Iraq's neighbours need to respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said John Kirby, State Department spokesman .
But there was a shift in the US policy regarding the conflict between Iraq and Turkey this week.
Ashton Carter, the US defence secretary, who
visited Baghdad on Saturday and Erbil, the Kurdish capital, on Sunday,
had suggested before his visit to Iraq that Turkey "should be given a
role in the Mosul offensive".
But speaking after a meeting with Carter, Abadi once again swiftly rejected the idea. "I
know that the Turks want to participate ... We tell them 'thank you,
this is something the Iraqis will handle and the Iraqis will liberate
Mosul'," he said.
Inside Story - Why does the battle for Mosul matter to Turkey?
Source: Al Jazeera News And News Agencies
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