Turkey’s refusal to withdraw a military force from northern Iraq, following their highly-publicized entry on 3 December, has created yet another political storm for PM Haidar al-‘Abadi. The move has been seized on by rival Shia groupings to present themselves as the most reliable guarantors of Iraqi sovereignty.
Turkey’s incursion is not within Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) territory proper, but rather Bashiqa, in an area near the Nineveh provincial capital of Mosul – still under occupation by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) – in which Kurdish forces have security control. (CONTINUED - 892 WORDS)
