Turkey agrees to hand over Bashiqa-Zilkan base to Iraq — Cyprus Mail

In New York, United States, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi agreed on the gradual transfer of the Turkish Bashiqa-Zilkan military base to Iraq’s federal government. This was reported by Cyprus Mail.

Transfer of the base

The leaders met behind closed doors at the Turkish House building in New York. The talks took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly’s high-level session.

A joint statement said that Turkish forces would gradually hand over the Bashiqa-Zilkan base to Iraq’s federal government. The parties are to separately agree on the timeline and mechanism of the transfer.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.

Agreements on Sinjar

The governments of Turkey and Iraq also announced that they had reached an understanding on establishing full state control in the Sinjar area and ending the presence of banned foreign armed elements there. The statement did not specify which groups were meant.

Turkey has maintained a presence at the Bashiqa camp near Mosul since 2015. This deployment has strained relations between Ankara and Baghdad, which has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of Turkish troops.