US-Turkey defense ministers meet second time in five days

Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Işık met U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter in Brussels on Oct. 26, the second meeting in five days, as two countries ramp up joint efforts to destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was also present at the meeting with Işık and Carter, where the trio met in Brussels on the sidelines of NATO defense ministers' meeting, one day after the Western defense chiefs from the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL met in Paris to review the offensive on the jihadist bastion of Mosul.

The operations conducted against ISIL in Mosul and Syria were the sole themes discussed at the meeting on Oct. 26 between Işık, Carter and Le Drian, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. 

Carter paid a visit to Turkey on Oct. 21 amid escalating tensions between Turkey and Iraq over the fight against ISIL and sought reconciliation between Ankara and Baghdad. 

The U.S. official told Işık they wanted Turkey to participate in an anti-ISIL operation in Iraq, according to Turkish sources. But Turkey's participation in the Mosul offensive was rejected by the Iraqi administration in a subsequent meeting attended by Carter in Baghdad. 

Carter's push for Baghdad to let Turkey participate in the Mosul operation was encountered by an opposition from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's, who said his country's forces will oust ISIL militants from northern Iraq.

On Oct. 25, Carter said that the United States expects the campaigns against ISIL in Mosul and Raqqa to overlap, signaling that a push to start isolating the group's de facto capital in Syria may not be very far off. 

Iraqi forces are already nine days into their U.S.-backed campaign...