Baghdad and Ankara agree to end Turkish military presence at a base in northern Iraq

The Iraqi and Turkish governments agreed yesterday to end the Turkish military presence at the Bashiqa-Zelikan camp in northern Iraq and hand it over to the federal government according to an agreed timeline and mechanism. A joint statement issued after a meeting between Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Allousi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly noted that the two sides agreed to deepen security cooperation in various fields, emphasizing the full exercise of Iraqi state authority in the city of Sinjar, part of the Nineveh Governorate, and the elimination of the presence of prohibited foreign armed elements. The statement clarified that the handover of the camp is based on the progress Iraq has achieved through its field security steps, pointing to the agreement between the two sides to expand the scope of trade and investment exchanges between the two countries, the immediate implementation of signed agreements, and the acceleration of joint strategic projects. It is worth noting that Turkish forces have been stationed at the Bashiqa-Zelikan camp in northern Iraq since 2014, and their presence sparked a dispute between Baghdad and Ankara, as the Iraqi government at the time considered the deployment of Turkish troops in the camp without the approval of the federal government a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.