Erdogan tells Iraq PM to "know his limits", says will not get orders on Bashiqa camp
Source: Reuters
ANKARA, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Turkish President Erdogan told Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to "know his limits" on Tuesday, and said the Turkish army would not take orders from Iraq on the Bashiqa camp.
"Iraq had certain requests from us regarding Bashiqa, and now they are telling us to leave, but the Turkish army has not lost so much standing as to take orders from you," Erdogan told a meeting of Islamic leaders in Istanbul.
"The Iraqi prime minister is insulting me, first know your limits," he added.
Turkey and Iraq have summoned each other's ambassadors in a mounting diplomatic stand-off and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned Turkey that it risked triggering a "regional war" by keeping troops in Iraqi territory.
Read more: http://news.trust.org/item/20161011104146-j9o4n
Washington (CNN) US officials are urging calm between Turkey and Iraq to keep the flaring tensions between the two key American allies from jeopardizing the fight against ISIS.
The flap over the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq, which the government in Baghdad objects to because the forces are there without its permission, could undermine recent gains in the fight against the terror group and disrupt the upcoming effort to retake Mosul.
"We call on both governments to focus on their common enemy: ISIL," Pentagon spokesman Matthew Allen told CNN, using the government's preferred acronym for the terror group. "It is imperative for all parties over the coming days and weeks to closely coordinate next steps to ensure unity of effort in our counter-ISIL fight."
A US defense official told CNN that 1,000 Turkish soldiers are stationed in Bashiqa in Nineveh province, northeast of the ISIS held-city of Mosul, the terror group's most important bastion in Iraq.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/11/politics/us-turkey-iraq-tensions-mosul-isis-fight/index.html
https://twitter.com/BenjaminHarvey/status/785792711001374721