Iraqis rally in Baghdad against deployment of Turkish troops

Hundreds of Iraqis rallied in Baghdad under tight security measures on Saturday protesting the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq and calling Ankara's move a "violation of Iraq's sovereignty."

The demonstrators gathered at al-Tahrir Square in central the capital, chanting slogans condemning the deployment of the Turkish troops in northern Iraq without the knowledge or permission of the Iraqi government.

Dozens of demonstrators were wearing military uniforms of paramilitary Shiite units, known as Hashd Shaabi. Many of them were holding Iraqi flags and raising banners reading "Our sovereignty is our dignity."

Nuri al-Maliki, former vice-president, and Hadi al-Ameri, head of Badr Organization, led the televised demonstration. The two mounted a platform with several Shiite politicians, while many of their bodyguards crowded around them.

Ameri read a statement saying "the groups of Islamic resistance announce our rejection to the violation of the national sovereignty and all plots that aim at dividing Iraq, and we consider any military presence on Iraqi territory a foreign aggression that must be confronted."

Ameri's Badr Organization, previously known as Badr Brigade which maintains its longtime ties with the neighboring Iran, emerged as a powerful militia during the years that followed the U.S.-led invasion to Iraq in 2003. It turned into a political organization a few years later.

Badr Brigade was the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite party headed by Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim.

Last week, Ameri and Maliki called for demonstrations against Turkey under the name of "Defense of Sovereignty."

On Friday, Iraq's most revered Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani urged the government not to "tolerate" with any party that violates the sovereignty of the country.

Later on Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi instructed the Foreign Ministry to lodge an official complaint to the UN Security Council over the deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq.

The demonstrations came two days after the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that withdrawing Turkish troops from Iraq is out of the question and that the Turkish soldiers are in Iraq as part of a training mission.

The deployment of Turkish troops dates back to 2002 and additional troops were deployed in 2014 in response to a request from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi, Erdogan told a press conference.

"Turkish troops in Mosul are not there as combatants; they are trainers. Their numbers may vary depending on the size of Kurdish Peshmerga troops. It is out of the question, for now, to pull them out," he said.

The crisis between the two countries sparked last Friday when reports said a Turkish training battalion equipped with armored vehicles was deployed near the city of Mosul to train Iraqi paramilitary groups in fighting the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militant group.

Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, has been under IS control since June 2014.

Baghdad has insisted that the Turkish troops had no authorization from the Iraqi government and thus demanded their withdrawal, while Ankara called the troops only a routine rotation of the trainers. Enditem