Alwaght- Turkish authorities claim they have entered the Iraqi operation to liberate Mosul while Iraqis reject any involvement by foreign forces.
The Turkish foreign minister says his army has entered the operation by artillery units shelling ISIS positions in different fronts meanwhile Iraqi Joint Operations Command had earlier denied similar claims by the Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yildrim.
"Our aim is to remove Daesh from both Syria and Iraq. Iraq is a neighbor and friend for Turkey and for us the territorial integrity and stability in Iraq is as important as our own," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
"There are also four F-16 fighter jets on standby for an air operation as part of the international coalition, ready for air strikes. How they are deployed will depend on decisions by members of the coalition and our military," he added.
Turkish minister claimed Ankara had begun fighting the ISIS terrorists in the region even before the onset of Mosul Liberation Operation. He said Turkish army has already killed over 700 terrorists.
The Iraqi authorities, on the other hand, deny any such involvement not only by turkey but by any foreign force.
"The spokesman of the Joint Operations Command denies Turkish participation of any kind in operations for the liberation of Nineveh,” read a statement referring to the Iraqi province in which Mosul is located.
Ankara claims it has deployed a unit of 150 heavily armed soldiers supported with 25 tanks to the Bashiqa military camp in the Iraqi Kurdish region to support Peshmerga forces that are now involved in the Mosul operation.
The current shelling attacks during Mosul operation are claimed by Turkey to be a support of the same Peshmerga forces.
Binali Yildirim, Turkish prime minister, claimed on Sunday that Turkish troops stationed outside Mosul had provided support "with artillery, tanks and howitzers" following a request by Peshmerga forces.
"They asked for help from our troops at the Bashiqa camp and we are supporting them with artillery, tanks and Firtina howitzers," he said.
This is while, the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) denied Binali Yildrim’s announcement that Turkish troops had joined the military offensive by the request of Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
The KRG further stressed that there is no cooperation between the semi-autonomous northern Iraqi region and Turkish government concerning the operation to liberate Mosul.
The Turkish parliament members recently renewed the mission of their armed units, already in Iraq, for another year. The move was rejected furiously by their counterparts in Iraq that painted the deployed units as “occupiers” with the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi calling for their immediate removal from Iraqi territories.
Iraqi government has requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss the issue, and both countries summoned each other's ambassadors in a mounting diplomatic standoff
