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Turkey free to join operation in Mosul: president

Xinhua, October 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that his country does not need to win permission for joining the expected operation to take back Iraq's second largest city of Mosul from the Islamic State.

"Turkey doesn't need to ask for permission from anywhere and it doesn't consider having it," the president said in a televised speech to an Islamic forum in Istanbul.

Erdogan was responding to an objection by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who reportedly vowed on Sunday not to allow Ankara to participate in the upcoming offensive "under any circumstances."

"You are not my interlocutor, you are not at my level, you are not at my quality," Erdogan hit back by saying. "Know your own place, your declaration from Iraq is not important to us. We will go our own way."

He said the Turkish forces will do what is necessary in Mosul.

Tensions between Turkey and Iraq have been on the rise over the presence of Turkish troops at the Bashiqa camp in northern Iraq, which Baghdad sees as "hostile occupying forces."

The Turkish parliament voted lately to extend its military mandate in Iraq and Syria, in a move that has further angered Iraqi officials. Endit