ANKARA // Iraq and Turkey on Wednesday summoned their respective ambassadors in a bitter war of words between the two neighbours ahead of a planned operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from extremists.
The dispute centres around Turkish troops deployed near Mosul, a presence that Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi has strongly opposed.
Ankara called in the Iraqi ambassador while Baghdad said it had decided to summon the Turkish envoy following bitter verbal exchanges.
The Turkish parliament at the weekend extended by one year a government mandate allowing its troops to deploy on both Iraqi and Syrian territory. But the Iraqi parliament condemned the decision and demanded the withdrawal of the Turkish troops already there.
“We do not want to enter a regional conflict,” Mr Abadi told a news conference in Baghdad, saying he fears “the Turkish adventure will turn into a regional war.”
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned of possible sectarian consequences arising from the Mosul operation, prompting the Iraqi foreign ministry to summon the Turkish ambassador over “provocative Turkish statements”.
Mosul, Iraq’s second city, fell under ISIL control in 2014 But Baghdad is now planning -with help from a US-led coalition — a major operation to retake the city, which had a population of two million before ISIL invaded.
However, Ankara has made it clear it will not be left on the sidelines. There are an undisclosed number of Turkish troops in the Bashiqa camp in northern Iraq, training Iraqi fighters who hope to take part in the battle to recapture Mosul.
Turkish Deputy prime minister Numan Kurtulmus said the troops were not planning to be an “occupying force”.
“Where was the Iraqi government when Daesh captured Mosul in a day ... We have difficulty understanding this decision (of the Iraqi parliament),” he said.
His Iraqi counterpart has repeatedly demanded the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Iraqi soil. But the forces are in territory controlled by the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, whose government has close relations with Ankara.
Anthony Skinner, head of political risk at Verisk Maplecroft consultancy, said that military conflict with Turkey was the “last thing (Iraq) can afford”. He added, “This, however, is not to preclude the possibility that diplomatic measures will be taken by Baghdad against Ankara.”
Mr Erdogan recently suggested that the liberation of Mosul had to be conducted by those with ethnic and religious ties to the city, objecting to the use of Shiite militiamen or anti-Ankara Kurdish forces.
Turkey is an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country with increasingly close ties to Sunni Muslim kingpin Saudi Arabia.
As he did with regard to Syria, Mr Erdogan indicated he was particularly troubled by any use of fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 32-year insurgency inside Turkey and whose paramilitary headquarters are in northern Iraq.
“The game played by Shiite militias and members of the terrorist organisation linked to the PKK — in complete contradiction of the region’s sectarian and ethnic structure, its cultural sensitivities — must be disrupted,” he said.
Mr Skinner said the US must perform a “nigh impossible balancing act” between keeping Ankara on board as an ally in Iraq and Syria and giving “qualified support” to a Kurdish militia seen by Turkey as a terrorist group.
Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik has also warned of what the aftermath of an assault on Mosul would bring.
“Our allies need to carefully consider how there could be up to one million refugees caused by (any) Mosul operation. This migration wave must be resolved within Iraqi territory,” he said. `If migration spilled outside Iraq, it would be a “large burden” for Turkey that would also affect Europe.
Ankara says it is already home to more than three million refugees. Most are from Syria, but some 300,000 are from Iraq.
* Agence France-Presse