Rift between Turkey and Iraq grows as Ankara threatens to put boots on the ground in battle against Isis
US Secretary of Defence says operation likely to overlap with Raqqa offensive, complicating the already tense relationship between Turkey and Iraqi and Kurdish fighting factions
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Your support makes all the difference.Tensions are flaring between Ankara and Baghdad after the Turkish foreign ministry has said that all military options - including ground operations - are on the table in the fight to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Isis.
When asked about Turkey’s security, “If the threat against us” increases, “we will use all our resources... to end the threat against us and that is our most natural right,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised interview on Tuesday.
Mr Cavusoglu said on Monday that Turkish artillery fire killed 17 Isis fighters east of Mosul, in what was the first Turkish foray into the nine-day-old US-backed coalition offensive, although the Iraqi prime minister said that the incident had not taken place.
Ankara currently has a small number of Turkish trained Sunni tribal fighters and Turkish support troops at a base north of the city, despite strong objections from the Iraqi government, which sees their presence as an incursion of Iraqi sovereignty.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), as well as Isis, is also in Turkey’s crosshairs. Speaking on Monday Mr Cavusoglu said that the Kurdish fighters had been crossing the border to carry out a string of recent attacks in Turkey, which outlaws the group as a terrorist organisation. In neighbouring Syria, a Turkish operation to drive Isis out of the border region with a secondary aim of curbing any Syrian Kurdish appetite for expansion has been largely successful.
A Syrian Kurdish commander told reporters in Paris on Tuesday that Turkey had “massively attacked” Kurdish forces trying to advance on Isis’ de facto capital of Raqqa.
Also on Tuesday, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said that the Mosul and Raqqa campaigns are expected to overlap, further complicating the already complex relationships between the coalition forces battling Isis. The comments from Mr Carter come after his weekend warnings that Turkey and Iraq must settle their in-fighting in order not to jeopardise the success of the wider operation.
A 30,000 strong coalition of Sunni fighters, Shiite militias, Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi army troops are involved in the battle to free Mosul from the group, who took over the city in 2014. They have made steady progress despite Isis suicide bombers, landmines and counterattacks elsewhere in Iraq, and are in places only four miles away from the city’s outskirts.
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