Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration in Basra yesterday against Turkish military deployment in Iraq.
Shia militia groups, which have threatened to use force against Turkey unless it withdraws its troops, lead rallies in Baghdad and Basra
Reuters
Baghdad
Thousands of Iraqis protested yesterday against Ankara’s deployment of troops to a base near the northern city of Mosul, with some burning Turkish flags and threatening violence against the soldiers for what they see as a violation of sovereignty.
News of the deployment of 150 Turkish soldiers earlier this month triggered a crisis between Ankara and Baghdad, which has appealed to the UN Security Council to demand their immediate and unconditional withdrawal.
Ankara has refused, saying the troops were part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State, which still controls a large part of the country. Baghdad denies inviting such a force.
As tensions smoulder between Moscow and Ankara over Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane last month, Russia labelled the Turkish deployment an “unlawful incursion”.
At least 4,000 demonstrators gathered in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad yesterday, and several thousand more in the oil city of Basra in the south, including Shia militia members who held up banners reading “Death to Turkey. Death to Erdogan”.
“We consider any military presence on Iraqi land as foreign aggression which we should stand against using all possible means,” Hadi al-Amiri, a Shia lawmaker who heads the powerful armed Badr Organisation, told protesters in Baghdad.
The rallies were organised and led by Shia militia groups, which have threatened to use force against Turkey unless it withdraws.
Pointing his pistol towards an image of Erdogan, Amjad Salim, a local commander in the Badr Organisation in Basra, said: “We are on high alert now awaiting orders from our commanders to set fire to the ground beneath the feet of Turkish soldiers.”
In Baghdad, angry protesters trampled on the Turkish flag and hit a caricature of Erdogan with slippers.
“If Turkey thinks Iraq is busy with fighting Daesh and it can seize the opportunity to deploy troops then it should think twice before making such a mistake,” said Abu Muntathar al-Moussawi, a local commander in Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq paramilitary group.
“We can target Turkish soldiers and coming days will prove it.”
In its appeal to the Security Council on Friday, Iraq called Turkey’s military incursion a “flagrant violation” of international law.
“We call on the Security Council to demand that Turkey withdraw its forces immediately ... and not to violate Iraqi sovereignty again,” Iraqi ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said in a letter to US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, president of the Security Council this month.
“This is considered a flagrant violation of the principles of the UN Charter, and a violation of Iraqi territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state of Iraq,” the letter said, according to an unofficial translation of the Arabic original.
The letter was sent after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi instructed the foreign ministry to lodge a formal complaint at the United Nations.
Alhakim made clear that bilateral diplomacy had failed so far to end the dispute between the two neighbours.
“Iraq worked on containment of this issue by diplomatic means and bilateral talks, but these efforts did not succeed in convincing Turkey to withdraw its occupying forces from Iraqi territory,” Alhakim wrote to Power, noting that the Turkish incursion was an “aggressive act”.
He added: “Assistance with military training and advanced technology and weapons to fight the Islamic State terrorist entity must be based upon bilateral and multilateral agreements and in full respect of the national sovereignty and Iraqi constitution, and in co-ordination with the Iraqi armed forces.”
