Escalation between Iraq and Turkey as Erdogan slams Abadi

October 12, 2016

Jeddah, Oct 12: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s criticism of the presence of Turkish troops in Iraq ahead of a planned operation to retake Mosul from Daesh.

eddah

“Who’s that? The Iraqi prime minister? First you know your place,” retorted Erdogan.

“You are not my interlocutor; you are not my equal,” Erdogan told a meeting in Istanbul at which he addressed Al-Abadi. “You should know your limits.”

“It is not important at all how you shout from Iraq. You should know that we will do what we have to do,” said Erdogan.

Turkey shares a 1,200 km border with Syria and Iraq, and faces threats from Daesh in both. Turkey is concerned however, that once Daesh is evicted from Mosul, the overwhelmingly Sunni city will be taken over by Iran-affiliated Shiite militias.

Ankara maintains an estimated 2,000 troops in Iraq — around 500 of them in the Bashiqa camp
in northern Iraq. They are training local fighters who will join the battle to recapture Mosul, according to Turkish media reports.

The Iraqi premier’s spokesman, Saad Al-Hadithi, said Erdogan was “pouring oil on the fire” with his remarks. “Turkey’s response has turned a law and security issue into a problem of a personal nature,” he told AFP.

The differences between Ankara and Baghdad flared up after the Turkish Parliament extended a government mandate by one year thereby allowing its troops to remain on both Iraqi and Syrian soil.

The Shiite-dominated Iraqi Parliament labeled the Turkish troops an “occupying force.”
Erdogan rejected the demand for Turkish troop withdrawal.

“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,” said Erdogan.
Turkey’s position is that involving Shiite militias in a drive to expel Daesh from Mosul will not bring peace.

“If you try to change the demographic structure in Mosul, you will ignite the fires of a major sectarian war,” said Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is traveling to Saudi Arabia on Thursday for a meeting with the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in Riyadh.

Confirming the news to Arab News on Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman Osama Nugali said: “Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir and Cavusoglu will hold a joint press conference on Thursday where they will address this issue (of Mosul).”

Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi told Arab News on Tuesday that the GCC meeting with Turkey has assumed significance in the light of the new developments.

“Saudi Arabia and Turkey should be worried about Iran and the sectarian government in Baghdad,” he said. “They (Tehran and Baghdad) have supported demographic changes elsewhere in Iraq. They are changing history; their intentions are bad; and we know this from what they have already done in Sunni areas.”

According to Khashoggi, if Iran and the notorious Shiite militia, Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi, launch an attack of their own on Mosul, “then that will lead to a mass Sunni exodus from Mosul.” He said a Shiite presence in Mosul would make Sunnis anxious and fearful.

Khashoggi is worried about something else. “Iran may populate Mosul with people who are not indigenous to the area,” he claimed. “The Iranians have done this before; they change demographics, and should not be allowed to do so.”

He is strongly opposed to allowing what he sees as Iranian-American designs to succeed in Mosul.

“Erdogan will not allow the Americans and Iranians to go into Mosul with Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi,” he said. “Turkey will insist on — and get — a role for the Peshmergas because the Peshmergas are Erdogan’s strong allies.”

Khashoggi said Turkey would need support from the GCC states and “Turkey would get it, because Turkish concerns are Saudi and Gulf concerns as well.”

He did not agree with the American approach of aligning with Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi and the Kurds in order to liberate Mosul. “That is totally wrong. This should not be allowed (because) Al-Hashad Al-Shaabi are not people indigenous to Mosul,” he said.

Meanwhile, a US State Department official told Arab News that Iraq’s neighbors needed to respect Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“That is the premise that the global Counter ISIL Coalition operates under in Iraq, and we expect all of our partners to do the same,” he said. “We call on both governments to focus on their common enemy — Daesh.”

According to the spokesman, it is imperative for all parties in the coming days and weeks to coordinate their steps in order to ensure a unity of effort in the fight against Daesh.

“We continue to believe that this is a diplomatic matter for the governments of Iraq and Turkey to resolve and we support continued dialogue that will lead to a resolution of this matter,” he said.

“It is important that all parties who support the Iraqi government’s efforts to defeat Daesh do so in a manner that does not inflame sectarian tensions,” he said, and added: “This is something that we have discussed as a coalition and also with the government of Iraq.”

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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News Network
November 4,2024

firewestbank.jpg

Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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News Network
November 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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