Over the past month, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu visited Brussels twice - most recently on Dec. 10 when he met with 10 European leaders to discuss the refugee crisis. I had the opportunity to accompany and speak with him about Turkish-Russian relations, Turkey's war on terror and the controversy surrounding Turkish troops training anti-DAESH forces near Mosul.
Turkey has been training Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) peshmerga forces at the Bashiqa camp since 2014. According to Turkish officials, at least 2,500 peshmerga soldiers completed the program to help liberate Sinjar from DAESH. Having received intelligence about an impending DAESH attack on the training camp, the Turkish government deployed protection units, including tanks and armored vehicles, to the area. The reinforcements, Ankara maintains, were deployed to keep Turkish troops who have been training the peshmerga and Arab forces, safe.
The central government in Baghdad, under the influence of Iran and Russia, responded strongly to the deployment of additional Turkish troops to the area by invoking sovereignty rights and taking the Mosul row to the U.N. Security Council. In an effort to avoid further damage to bilateral relations, Ankara not only sent envoys to the Iraqi capital, but also moved part of its forces closer to the border. Since the Bashiqa camp was attacked shortly afterward, it would appear that DAESH perceived the troop movement as a sign of weakness. The Turkish military responded to the deadly attack, which also left four Turks wounded, by firing on nearby DAESH positions.
Even after the attack, however, Baghdad continued urging Turkey to withdraw its forces from Bashiqa and the rest of Northern Iraq. The central government, to be clear, was not acting alone. Angered by Turkey's recent move to establish a military base in Qatar and deploy 3,000 troops to the area, Iran has strong-armed Baghdad into taking action against Ankara. Days later, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a similar request to Davutoğlu. Finally, on Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the situation in Iraq with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. According to officials, Ankara considers Washington's request an effort to appease Baghdad precisely because the U.S. sided with Turkey at the U.N. Security Council, which called on Turkey and Iraq to address the issue on a bilateral basis. Heeding Obama's warning that Baghdad will try to escalate the situation, the Turkish government announced that it would continue withdrawing its forces from Bashiqa.
In other words, the Turkish servicemen who have been training anti-DAESH fighters in Northern Iraq will remain in Bashiqa. The protection units, however, will leave the area.
Why are Turkish troops in Iraq? According to Davutoğlu, the answer is quite clear: "Iraq and Syria are unable to protect their borders, which compels Turkey to deploy troops to the conflict zone. If Turkey leaves [Mosul], DAESH militants, not Iraqi troops, will replace us. If the Iraqi army were to come to Bashiqa, we would greet them with flowers and withdraw from the area."
Erdoğan, according to the presidency's written statement, conveyed the same message to Obama on Friday.
In plain English, the Turkish government's position is that in light of growing instability in neighboring countries and the emergence of a terror-friendly environment across the southern border, Ankara has developed a new concept of national security. Accordingly, Ankara attempts to neutralize national security threats such as the PKK and DAESH in Syria and Iraq instead of facing the challenge at the border. In Davutoğlu's words, "We need to create a safe environment in Northern Iraq to keep DAESH and the PKK under control in order to maintain security at home." Having pushed for the creation of a DAESH-free zone in northern Syria, Ankara now demands similar action in Northern Iraq to keep itself and the KRG safe. The case of Mosul indicates that Ankara would like Turkish troops to enforce a safe zone in which peshmerga forces and other anti-DAESH groups will receive training.Davutoğlu maintains that "Turkey's border security starts across the border." This statement, it would appear, lies at the heart of this new concept of national security.
