Turkey says it will halt further transfers of troops to an area near the Islamic State-controlled Iraqi city of Mosul after Baghdad threatened to appeal to the United Nations to force Turkey to withdraw its soldiers.
Turkey deployed hundreds of forces to a camp in the Bashiqa region of northern Iraq on Thursday, calling it a routine rotation to train Iraqis to retake Mosul from IS, which captured Iraq's second-largest city in 2014.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said his country might turn to the UN security council if Turkish troops sent to northern Iraq were not withdrawn within 48 hours.
He said the deployment of hundreds of Turkish forces happened without the approval or knowledge of the Iraqi government and constituted a violation of national sovereignty.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu wrote a letter to Abadi on Sunday, saying Turkey's armed forces would not send additional forces until Baghdad's "sensitivities" were placated. He stopped short of agreeing to Abadi's demand to withdraw the soldiers.
"No further forces will be deployed to Bashiqa until concerns of the Iraqi government are overcome," the letter said, according to sources at the prime minister's office in Ankara.
"Turkey is ready to deepen its co-operation with Iraq in co-ordination and consultation. Those who are disturbed by the co-operation of Turkey and Iraq and who want to end it should not be allowed to attain their goal," it said.
Davutoglu earlier said the activity was a routine troop rotation to support a camp that Turkish forces had previously set up at the Mosul governor's request and in co-ordination with the Iraqi Defence Ministry.
Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said he told his Turkish counterpart the latest deployment had been made without informing or co-ordinating with Baghdad, and should be withdrawn.
He said the Turkish defence minister had explained the deployment as necessary to protect military advisers training Iraqi forces about 30km northeast of Mosul in preparation for a campaign to retake the city. But Obeidi said the force was too large for such a purpose.
In his statement, Abadi said: "Iraq has the right to use all available options, including resorting to the UN Security Council if these forces are not withdrawn within 48 hours."
A much-anticipated counter-offensive by Iraqi forces to retake Mosul from Islamic State has been repeatedly postponed because they are tied down in fighting elsewhere.
The US was aware of the deployment but the move is not part of the US-led coalition's activities, according to defence officials in Washington.
