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Turkey leaves door open to join coalition fight to drive ISIL from Mosul
Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz has left the door ajar for Turkey's participation in a looming large-scale operation to be conducted by Iraqi forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shia militia -- backed by international coalition air support -- to reclaim the Mosul province of Iraq.
The province fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in June 2014.
Turkey's possible participation in the operation, which is expected to take place as early as April according to US military officials, has become a matter of acrimonious debate after remarks by the Mosul governor suggested an active Turkish role in the approaching military campaign.
Defense Minister Yılmaz said in a press meeting on Monday that Turkey would continue to make assessments in order to fulfill its responsibilities as a member of the coalition against ISIL. But the ambiguous nature of his response served only to fuel, rather than end, the speculation.
“Turkey is a member of the coalition,” he said. “As such, Turkey has begun to actively contribute to the coalition. … When the time comes, Turkey will make an assessment that takes into account our national interests and fulfills our responsibilities of coalition membership.”
The defense minister also said he will meet with his Iraqi counterpart and the Iraqi interior minister on Wednesday, but ruled out any interpretation that would suggest closer cooperation against ISIL in the run-up to the reported impending military move on Mosul.
Mosul Governor Useyil Nujaifi claimed on Sunday that Turkish authorities had decided to send weapons and supplies to help the coalition regain Mosul. His remarks came after a trip last week to Ankara by his brother, Iraqi Vice President Osama Nujaifi, during which he met with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.
Yeniçağ daily columnist Ahmet Takan was the first to claim that Turkey would take part in an offensive to regain Mosul.
In his column of Feb. 26, Takan underlined that Turkey's foreign policy toward Iraq had changed and that it has agreed to engage in a “hot war” with ISIL in collaboration with the US-led anti-ISIL coalition. “Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel attended a meeting of coalition military heads in Saudi Arabia's capital of Riyadh. There, the participant countries agreed to eliminate ISIL and Turkey declared its commitment to participating in the operation," wrote Takan.
Until recently, the Turkish government has been consistently reluctant to play any active role in the international coalition against ISIL.
ISIL fighters seized Mosul last June as they swept through northern Iraq toward Baghdad, meeting virtually no resistance from the army and establishing a self-declared caliphate straddling the border between Iraq and Syria.
The US and its allies have waged months of air strikes against ISIL targets and Washington is training and equipping the Iraqi military to recapture lost territory. The battle for Mosul is expected to be pivotal in that struggle.
A US Central Command official said last week that an Iraqi and Kurdish military force of 20,000 to 25,000 troops is being prepared to recapture the city, probably in April or May.
Turkey leaves door open to join coalition fight to drive ISIL from Mosul - CİHAN
