ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey has agreed to hand over its controversial military base in Nineveh province to the Iraqi army, which will use it as a training facility, Iraq’s foreign minister said on Thursday. “I am glad that, after long, frank and clear talks, we have reached a number of points which include how to treat the Bashiqa military base. We reached a clear understanding that Bashiqa military base will be turned into an Iraqi military training base… It will be run by the [Iraqi] Armed Forces,” Fuad Hussein said during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara. On the pretext that it was training local forces, Turkey deployed troops to Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul in 2015 after the Islamic State (ISIS) took control of swathes of Iraqi territory. The deployment strained Ankara’s relations with Baghdad, which did not authorize it. Iraqi officials and politicians have repeatedly called for the withdrawal of Turkish troops. The base has been the target of several attacks over the years, some of them claimed by groups affiliated with pro-Iran militia groups. Hussein is leading an Iraqi delegation to the Turkish capital for meetings on a variety of issues. The neighbours have a number of bilateral committees working on issues of mutual importance. “The committees cover many issues: Turkey-Iraq’s historic and geographic relations…, water, trade and economy, electricity, energy with all its types such as oil and gas, culture and tourism, health and industry, transportation, youth and sports, education, agriculture, social affairs and services, and definitely security,” Hussein told reporters during the press conference. He said Baghdad and Ankara have strong relations but Iraq seeks to improve the ties. “The work of these committees is important to bolster the bilateral relations between Turkey and Iraq. The relations are excellent but we want to further broaden them,” he noted. Fidan said last Friday that Turkey and Iraq signed 27 agreements during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Iraq in April. Erdogan’s rare visit took Ankara-Baghdad relations to another stage, primarily in relation to their security cooperation. Since then, Iraq has taken several actions against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), including banning the group and closing three political parties with alleged ties to it. Turkey began intensifying its decades-long war against the PKK in Duhok province in mid-June and has deployed hundreds of troops to the province. The federal government in Baghdad and the regional one in Erbil have remained largely quiet about Turkey’s military incursions and the devastation the conflict has inflicted on the civilian population and the environment. Hussein said he and the Turkish side discussed “how to fight criminal organizations, especially the organizations that have crossed the border.” He reiterated Iraq’s stance that Baghdad does not allow any group to use its territory as a launchpad to attack neighbours.
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