Turkey to turn over military camp in northern Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan have agreed on Wednesday for Turkish forces to gradually hand over a military camp at the Bashiqa-Zilkan base in northern Iraq to the Iraqi government.

After meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the sides said in a joint statement they had agreed to deepen security cooperation.

"Within this framework, they reached an agreement on fully establishing state authority in Sinjar and ending the presence of outlawed foreign armed elements," they said, referring to Kurdish fighters, some of whom are based in the mountainous Sinjar area of northern Iraq.

Turkey is continuing a peace process that it hopes will result in the disarmament of those rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and end a decades-old conflict.

The statement on Wednesday added that, "in accordance with the agreed-upon mechanism and timeline" and security measures taken by Iraq, Turkish forces would gradually hand over the Bashiqa-Zelikan base, a military installation in northern Iraq near Mosul, to the Iraqi government.

An Iraqi military commander familiar with the talks said the phased withdrawal of Turkish troops from the Bashiqa camp and another small base near Mosul was expected to be completed by the end of this year. There was no immediate comment from Turkey on the timeline.

Ankara deployed troops near Mosul in 2015, saying they were there to train and protect Iraqi forces and local Sunni Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish fighters preparing to fight Islamic State, which seized Mosul in 2014.

The deployment sparked a dispute with Baghdad, which demanded the troops’ withdrawal, while Ankara said they were supporting the anti-IS training mission. Turkey still has several bases in the region, which it says are there to protect Turkey's national security.

The joint statement said the two leaders also discussed bilateral ties and trade, stressing the need to urgently implement previously signed agreements and speed up "strategic projects".