Ankara and Baghdad to focus on positive agenda

Ankara and Baghdad have decided to focus on a positive agenda instead of disagreeing during a visit on Jan. 7-8 that aims to overcome earlier tensions and find momentum in areas of potential cooperation. 

Accordingly, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and his Iraqi counterpart, Haider al-Abadi, will state a joint declaration which will highlight cooperation in energy and trade following a third meeting of the Turkey-Iraq High Level Strategic Cooperation Council. 

A Turkish delegation visited Baghdad this week and proposed that the Bashiqa military camp, which has caused tension since 2015 because Turkey deployed hundreds of troops to train local Sunni fighters, be named as a training center for anti-ISIL coalition forces under the monitoring of Baghdad.
 
"Consider that the camp is yours and that it has been allocated for the use of a coalition member," a Turkish delegation member told Iraqi interlocutors, said the official.

"Our soldiers in Bashiqa and our presence there has never aimed at Iraq's sovereignty. We will say this in the meeting," Yıldırım said.

Ankara also proposed renegotiating a deal for the Bashiqa camp one year later, a Turkish official, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Hürriyet Daily Hews.

Turkey has pledged to withdraw its soldiers from Iraq when the threat posed by ISIL is eliminated. Iraq earlier proposed that Turkey put the camp under the control of Baghdad, but Ankara is concerned about security issues.

The issue will be part of discussions between Yıldırım and al-Abadi, the official said.

However, al-Abadi asked for the inclusion of a remark in the joint declaration which will ease his positon in front of the Iraqi public. Al-Abadi wants to include an expression which...