Iraqi FM says could use military option against 'Neo Ottoman Conqueror' Turkey if forced. (ET).
Iraq’s foreign minister said on Wednesday it could resort to military means if forced to defend itself from what it says is an intrusion of Turkish forces into part of its north.
Turkey said it had deployed a force protection unit earlier this month to the area due to heightened security risks near a camp where its troops were training an Iraqi militia to fight Islamic State insurgents. Ankara acknowledged that there had been a “miscommunication” with Baghdad over the deployment.
Iraqi security forces have had only a limited presence in Nineveh province where the camp is located since collapsing in June 2014 in the face of a lightning advance by Islamic State.
Foreign Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari said Iraq was committed to exhausting peaceful diplomatic avenues to avoid a crisis with its northern neighbour Turkey, but insisted that all options remained open.
“If there is no other solution but this (military), then we will adopt this solution. If we are forced to fight and defend our sovereignty and riches, we will be forced to fight,” he told reporters in Baghdad. Read the full story here.
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