Turkiye agrees to gradual handover of Bashiqa base to Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister al-Zaidi and Turkish President Erdogan pledged deeper security cooperation at UNGA. Turkiye and Iraq have agreed to a gradual transfer of Ankara’s military base in Bashiqa to Baghdad, according to a statement released by the Iraqi prime minister’s office. The announcement followed a meeting on Wednesday between Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “Within this framework, they reached an agreement on fully establishing state authority in Sinjar and ending the presence of outlawed foreign armed elements,” Iraq’s prime minister’s office announced, in an apparent reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has maintained a presence in the mountainous Sinjar region of northern Iraq. “The two sides also agreed to expand the volume of bilateral trade and investment, to implement signed agreements immediately, and to accelerate joint strategic projects, particularly the Development Road project,” the office added. The decision to transfer the facility addresses a longstanding flashpoint between the two neighbours. Turkiye first established the base in Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul, in December 2015 through an agreement with the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government to train local forces fighting the ISIL (ISIS) group.

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