Turkey shelved military plans to send more troops to support allies in northern Iraq, after the government in Baghdad said it may appeal to the United Nations to secure the withdrawal of Turkish soldiers deployed recently to the country.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told his Iraqi counterpart, Haider al-Abadi, that Turkey would take no steps that would violate Iraq's sovereignty or territorial unity, according to an emailed statement from his office. Earlier Sunday, Turkish officials had said Iraq's central government had invited Turkey to send troops to northern Iraq to train local forces combating Islamic State militants. Al-Abadi responded by threatening to take the issue to the United Nations Security Council.
"Our prime minister has stressed in his letter that there will be no transfer of forces to Bashiqa until the sensitivities of the Iraqi government are addressed," Davutoglu's office said in the statement. Davutoglu also briefed his Iraqi counterpart on the deployed Turkish troops' training mission, according to the statement, which didn't specify whether they would be withdrawn.
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