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Turkey must withdraw troops from Iraq no later than Tuesday night: Iraqi PM

Xinhua, December 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Iraq demanded on Monday that Turkey must withdraw its additional troops deployed earlier in northern Iraq no later than Tuesday night.

"Tomorrow, the period (of 48 hours) will end, and if there would be no withdrawal, all the options will be opened, or we will resort to the international organizations," Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said at a joint press conference with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was in Baghdad for an official visit.

The 48 hours were given by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi late Sunday for Turkey to withdraw its troops from an area near Mosul, Iraq's second largest city which has been under Islamic State (IS) control since June 2014. Otherwise Iraq said it maintains the right to use all available options, including going to the UN Security Council.

Jaafari said the withdrawal is not for the Turkish advisors and trainers, who have been working for months to train Iraqis at camps in northern Iraq, but for the additional Turkish troops that were deployed recently without coordination with the Iraqi government.

Steinmeier agreed that "Iraq is a sovereign country and any troops on its territory must be by coordination with its government."

"But we welcome communications between the two sides, because we hope to avoid further tensions in the Middle East region. This area does not bear further confrontations," Steinmeier said.

The crisis between Baghdad and Ankara has overshadowed Steinmeier's official visit, though Germany has planned to send up to 1,200 troops to support the international alliance in its anti-terror actions in Syria and Iraq.

In the meeting with Steinmeier, Abadi said "the deployment of Turkish troops inside Iraqi territory is rejected, as it happened without authorization by the Iraqi government, which considered a breach to Iraqi sovereignty."

Reports said a Turkish training battalion equipped with armored vehicles was deployed near the city of Mosul to provide training to Iraqi paramilitary groups against IS militants.

Earlier on Monday Turkey decided to stop sending more soldiers to Mosul until Ankara and Baghdad reach a consensus. Turkey has a total of 600 troops in Iraq. Endit