Iraq on Saturday demanded that Turkey withdraw troops sent into northern Iraq without prior authorization from the government, saying the move was a "hostile act" and a "serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty."
"We have confirmation that Turkish forces, numbering about one armored regiment with a number of tanks and artillery, entered Iraqi territory... allegedly to train Iraqi groups, without a request or authorization from Iraqi federal authorities," said a statement from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office, according to AFP.
The statement asked Turkey to "respect good neighbourly relations and to withdraw immediately from the Iraqi territory."
The Turkish forces were sent to a camp in the semi-autonomous Nineveh province of Iraq, about 50 miles from the Turkish border, and have been training Sunni fighters to retake the city of Mosul, which has been under control of the Islamic State group for the past year.
Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claimed that the troops' rotation was routine and was requested by Mosul's governor as part of ongoing training missions in coordination with Iraq's defense ministry, according to Al Jazeera. He added that Turkish forces first set up the camp, which is some 19 miles from Mosul, about a year ago.
While Iraq welcomes additional weapons and training from the international community in the fight against the Islamic State group, it distrusts the intentions of foreign powers and has been wary of boots on the ground, according to Reuters.
Davutoglu reassured Iraq that "Turkey is not after any country's soil. No one should arrive at any wrong conclusions from our support."
"This camp was established as a training camp for a force of local volunteers fighting terrorism," he said in a speech broadcast live by NTV news channel, according to Reuters.
The Islamic State group took control of Mosul in June 2014, and the city has since become a key center of the group's self-proclaimed caliphate. A much anticipated Iraqi counter-offensive has been repeatedly postponed because they are busy fighting elsewhere, reported BBC News.
